Hilary Benn: With permission, I would like to make a statement about the serious flooding in Cumbria and other areas of the country in the past few days. I have to report that PC Bill Barker lost his life in the floods in Workington while protecting the public. I know that the House will wish to echo the tribute paid by the Prime Minister on Friday to PC Barker. He was a very brave man. I also have to report that Michael Streeter, a contractor working for the Environment Agency, died following an accident on Selsey bill in West Sussex, where he was maintaining defences. There has been one other fatality-Mr. Chris Wheeler, a canoeist-and a woman is missing in Wales. Our thoughts are with all their families and colleagues.
	The flooding was caused by sustained rainfall from Wednesday evening onwards. In some parts of Cumbria there were unprecedented amounts of rain, totalling more than 300 mm-that is more than 12 inches-in 24 hours. The worst-affected areas were in west and central Cumbria. Around 1,300 or more properties have flooded, mainly in Cockermouth, Workington, Ulverston, Burneside, Kendal, Keswick and Eamont Bridge, but also in a number of small villages.
	As the forecast heavy rain arrived, silver and gold commands were quickly set up, and many residents were evacuated, some by helicopter. Some went to stay with family and friends; others have been housed in reception centres set up in Kendal, Cockermouth and Keswick. Many local roads have been affected, the west coast main line was temporarily suspended, and six bridges have collapsed due to the force of the water. Workington has lost Northside bridge, and the Calva bridge has been seriously damaged. Councils are making arrangements to ensure that residents can get access to essential services. More than 1,000 properties lost electricity, 40 were without mains water, and 12,000 were left without landline phones. Efforts are being made by the utility companies to restore supplies, and most of the landlines are now working.
	I saw for myself on Friday and Saturday in Cockermouth just what an effect the torrent of water had on homes, businesses and communities. It is utterly devastating, and the House will wish to express its sympathy to all those affected. The House will also wish to pay tribute to all those who have been involved in responding to the emergency, in particular those who worked so hard throughout Thursday night and into the weekend, led by chief constable Craig Mackey. That includes the staff of the fire, ambulance, and police services, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Mountain Rescue England and Wales, our armed forces, local authorities, the Environment Agency, the voluntary sector and, of course, the communities affected-neighbour once again helping neighbour, and showing the best of human spirit. I would also like to thank all the MPs in Cumbria, who have been working so hard to look after their constituents.
	The Government and local councils will do everything possible to help people to rebuild their lives, although we know that it takes time for homes and buildings to dry out. Council homeless teams are arranging longer-term accommodation for those who need it. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government activated the Bellwin scheme for the worst-affected areas on Friday morning. That scheme helps local authorities with the cost of emergency assistance and clean-up. In recognition of the exceptional nature of the floods, he has extended the scheme to allow authorities to claim 100 per cent. of the costs incurred, as was the case in 2007.
	The Prime Minister announced, during his visit on Saturday, £1 million in community recovery grant, to match the amount being given by the regional development agency to support the many small businesses that have been severely affected. The Department for Transport will also provide emergency funding-as it did two years ago-to help with repairs to bridges and roads.
	Cleaning up the mess has now started, and Cumbria county council is leading the local recovery effort. There will be a ministerial meeting later this afternoon to look at what more needs to be done to help. However, I must advise the House that further heavy rain is forecast overnight, and there may be some further flooding. The Association of British Insurers has urged people who have been flooded to contact their insurance company as quickly as possible. Its first priority is to ensure that every claim is dealt with promptly, and it will do everything that it can to help customers to recover.
	As with all major flooding, there will be lessons to be learned, although I have to say that the response of the emergency services was very impressive. We will work with the Environment Agency and others to ensure that the lessons are learned. In the two years since the 2007 floods, the Environment Agency has completed 106 flood defence schemes, protecting more than 63,000 additional homes in England and Wales, including in Carlisle. As I saw for myself on Friday, the new £40 million flood defence scheme there, built after the 2005 floods, helped to prevent flooding to around 3,000 properties last weekend.
	The House will know that, in the decade to 2007, we more than doubled spending on flood and coastal erosion defence. We are investing a record £2.15 billion over the current three-year spending period. We have also responded to the Pitt report by setting up the Flood Forecasting Centre, to provide better early warning of flooding; invested £2 million in improved flood rescue capability, including improving co-ordination of rescue boats; set up a £5 million scheme for household flood protection; and encouraged 140,000 additional people to sign up to receive flood warnings in England and Wales.
	We have also introduced the Flood and Water Management Bill that is currently before the House. I would like to thank the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for its scrutiny of the draft Bill, and I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will help in getting that important Bill on to the statute book.
	Although we cannot attribute this particular event to climate change, we can expect to see more extreme weather in the years ahead. That is a future that we must prepare for. I will, of course, keep the House informed of any further significant developments.

Hilary Benn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words of appreciation to all those who have worked so hard, and for his visit on Saturday. I can inform the House that the Minister with responsibility for flood recovery, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination, was in Workington and Cockermouth yesterday; and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), is in Cumbria today, as is Lord McKenzie of Luton. I know from personal experience that people on the ground appreciate such visits, because they help to show that people in very difficult circumstances are not forgotten. I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about the need to be there to support people in the long term, not just in the immediate aftermath of the flooding.
	I understand completely the wish of residents to be able to get back into their homes. I spoke to two or three who made that very point to me on Saturday morning. The police and the engineers have to be sure, however, that structures are safe for people to go back into. The torrent of water that went down Main street in Cockermouth, in particular, was extremely powerful, and they need to check that buildings are safe. However, I am sure that the police will seek to enable access as quickly as possible, subject to that requirement.
	On bridges, we will, indeed, look at what can be done. I am happy to confirm that the Cabinet Committee that Sir Michael Pitt recommended has met, and, as I have already told the House, we will have a ministerial meeting later today.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to previous flooding. He will be aware that a flood defence scheme was put in place in Cockermouth in the late 1990s, and it was topped up a bit in the wake of the 2005 floods. However, it was completely, as he said, overwhelmed.
	In the case of Keswick, where a scheme has been under consideration, I am advised that it, too, would have been overwhelmed by the scale of the water that we saw. However, I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that we will look in particular at what can be learned in relation to flood defences in Cumbria.
	Upland flood storage, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is part of the approach that the Environment Agency takes in trying to find a way to manage water. One can either defend places using higher walls as the water comes through, or try to reduce the rate of flow by storing it elsewhere, which flood plains have done naturally for many years.
	I am also grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his expression of support for the Flood and Water Management Bill, which will complete the process, which we have already started, of implementing Pitt's many recommendations. That has not stopped us from getting on with a great deal in the past two years, as I have already indicated to the House, but it will clarify the law, where required, both on the responsibilities of local authorities, and on reservoir safety, which was an important recommendation of Sir Michael's report.

Tim Farron: In thanking the Secretary of State for his statement, may I add my thanks to all those who have worked heroically since the early hours of Thursday morning to protect residents, homes and businesses throughout Cumbria? My brother-in-law is a member of Cumbria constabulary, and I have many friends in the force. They, like the whole community, are devastated by the loss of PC Barker, and I join the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in conveying my sympathy to PC Barker's family. I assure them of our prayers of support and immense gratitude for his service to our community and for his heroism. I also join the Secretary of State in his expressions of sympathy to the families of Michael Streeter and Chris Wheeler.
	Throughout my constituency, the police, the fire service, the ambulance service, the coastguard and South Lakeland district council deserve our thanks and praise, as do the volunteers in mountain rescue and in bay search and rescue. Our whole local community, and our local media, deserve praise, too. As of yesterday afternoon, the flood relief fund stood at £140,000 from voluntary donations alone, and that makes me extremely proud to be a Cumbrian.
	Since Thursday morning, I have visited residents and businesses in my constituency in Kendal, Burneside, Staveley, Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside. In each place, I have found people who have been devastated by the floods, but they are determined to work together and refuse to be cowed by the devastation. Indeed, the catastrophe has brought our community even closer together. On Thursday, as the River Kent was bursting its banks on Aynam Road in Kendal, I joined dozens of volunteers in a desperate and, I should say, successful bid to move to safety thousands of Christmas presents bound for orphanages in eastern Europe before the flood waters encroached on the warehouse.
	I walked with a family of local volunteers back to their home on Aynam road. Our mood of optimism and common endeavour fell as we discovered that the children's downstairs bedrooms had been flooded. It was heartbreaking to witness. There, in one vignette, I saw the camaraderie and common endeavour on the one hand, and the deep and devastating loss and upset on the other.
	Only 10 days ago, I took United Utilities and Environment Agency representatives to Burneside, where I pointed out to them the risk of flooding. United Utilities said that the cause of flooding was the inadequate capacity of the Kendal drainage system, but that an upgrade was a low priority. I am afraid that we have now paid for that complacency; homes in Kendal and Burneside flooded on Thursday. In most cases, they flooded because of a drainage system that was seriously under capacity. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need an upgrade as a priority?
	I thank the Secretary of State and Environment Agency officials for keeping me well informed throughout the past few days, but may I ask him why residents on the Environment Agency's flood watch call list were not given targeted warnings at all, or, in the case of Burneside, were texted six hours after their homes had been flooded? Given that the national Flood Forecasting Centre has the know-how to predict with pinpoint accuracy the likely communities and streets that will flood, why has it not been allowed to convey targeted warnings in advance to residents and businesses?
	Will the Secretary of State ensure that insurance companies do not respond to the disaster by hiking up insurance premiums in the affected areas, or by massively increasing the insurance excesses? Does he agree that local authorities should be given the right to turn down any planning application for building in flood-risk areas? Will he acknowledge that the delay in the arrival of the Flood and Water Management Bill has meant that confusion remains over who is responsible for so many aspects of flood prevention?
	I spent yesterday in Ambleside and Bowness with my family and saw businesses carrying on as usual, refusing to give in to the elements. The spirit out there is indefatigable and the message that those enterprises want me to get across is that the Lake district is very much open for business. The floods have been devastating, but we are made of stern stuff in Cumbria, and we are determined to carry on.
	Finally, will the Secretary of State join me in calling on the British people to support Cumbria by continuing to visit and enjoy the festive spirit in Britain's most spectacular county?

Hilary Benn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words of sympathy and eloquent appreciation of the efforts that the community is making; obviously, he has been at the heart of those in the past few days. I want to echo the point that he made about the local media. At times such as these, local radio in particular, but also local television, are tried and trusted sources of information about what is happening and where people can go to get assistance.
	I turn to the warnings. Obviously, a flood warning was issued to Kendal. However, much depends on the nature of the flooding; there is no warning for surface water flooding, by definition, because unless we know exactly where the rain is going to land, it is hard to indicate where surface water flooding may arise. That is why one of the measures in the Flood and Water Management Bill is to give the local authority, the upper tier or unitary authority lead responsibility for bringing together all the people with responsibility for bits of the drainage infrastructure-they could be the private owners of culverts, the Highways Agency, the council and others-to do precisely what the hon. Gentleman has suggested needs to be done to deal with the problem. I should add that we are also dealing with the legacy of 150 years of paving, tarmacking and concreting over all the land in our towns and cities. If that is done and huge amounts of rain fall out of the sky, where will the water go? That legacy has to be dealt with.
	Local authorities do have the powers in respect of building on flood plains. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we strengthened the planning guidance; the Environment Agency must now be consulted on planning applications. I am happy to report that in the vast majority of cases the decision goes in line with what the Environment Agency has to say about whether it is safe to build on a flood plain. It all depends on whether homes can be adequately defended.
	I very much echo the hon. Gentleman's final point. I hope that people continue to visit Cumbria and support businesses there. As one shop owner in Cockermouth said to me on Saturday, once things are up and running again, the most important thing is that people come and use the shops, to help businesses to get back on their feet.

Hilary Benn: My right hon. Friend the Minister will be meeting with the insurance companies-as we did after the 2007 floods. To give an example of the quick response by one insurance company, when I visited the rest centre in Cockermouth for the second time on Saturday, one insurance company had already turned up and was dealing with people's claims there and then. That shows how it is possible to respond. Insurance companies are very conscious of the need to help people to deal with their claims as quickly as possible, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we will follow that point up.

Bob Spink: In 1953, 58 people living on Canvey Island in my constituency were killed in the flood of that year. Will the Secretary of State and the Government ensure that their planning inspectors and the Environment Agency do all that they can to stop local councils going ahead with building on flood plains? Castle Point borough council is stupidly planning to build hundreds of houses on Canvey Island's flood plain.

Debate resumed (Order, 18 November).
	 Question again proposed,
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
	Most Gracious Sovereign,
	We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.- (Frank Dobson.)

David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Afghanistan now has a presidential system, but it also has some significant Cabinet Ministers who hold significant power. As for the opposition, they too have an important role to play.
	I met Dr. Abdullah in Afghanistan last Thursday. While he has made clear that he does not wish to join a Government of national unity in Afghanistan, he can play an important role in helping to promote a unity programme for any Government. I think that there are significant issues that could bring different sides together; and, as my hon. Friend suggests, if Dr. Abdullah is to become leader of the opposition, he will be able to play a constructive role in that capacity as well.
	Hon. Members will know of the ethnic divisions that exist in Afghanistan. An important part of the job of the new Government is to ensure that all parts of Afghan society feel that they have a stake in the political system, at local and national level. As my hon. Friend pointed out, opposition figures have an important responsibility in that respect.
	I said that one of the three key tasks for the counter-insurgency related to the region, and especially to Afghanistan's neighbours. One neighbour is more important than any other: Pakistan. For years insurgents have flowed freely backwards and forwards across the Afghan-Pakistan border, and that is not going to stop any time soon. In the last year, however, the Pakistani army has taken the fight to the Pakistani Taliban in Swat, south Waziristan and elsewhere.
	I considered it noteworthy that the Chief Minister of the North West Frontier province, Asfandyar Wali Khan, who represents the secular Awami National party in Pakistan, was present at the inauguration of President Karzai. He reported to me the significant progress made in the Swat valley, where as recently as June and July there were some 2.8 million internationally displaced persons. Those IDPs have now returned to their houses, and the Pakistani authorities have been able to establish order. The situation in south Waziristan is obviously one of more recent conflict. The insurgents are now, for the first time, being squeezed on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. That is true in the south of Pakistan and also in the east, which I visited earlier in the year.
	Our Government will continue to support the action of the Pakistani Government. I assured President Zardari of that last week. We will also encourage Islamabad to focus not just on the Pakistani Taliban, who are a direct threat to the Pakistani state, but also on al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. We will continue to help mitigate the effects of conflict on the Pakistani people with additional humanitarian assistance for those who have been displaced and development assistance to help them to rebuild their lives. The Department for International Development recently committed more than £665 million over four years to Pakistan. We have had some success in getting the European Union to increase its contribution and also to focus on issues such as trade and constitutional and political reform, but we will continue to push for a greater effort.

David Miliband: I am happy to go into that, but the truth about the terrorist presence in the Punjab is that at its heart is an organisation called Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is conducting its terrorists operations on the issue of Kashmir. That is its mission. I will be very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman and to go through this with him. He raises an important point, but we should not simply believe that every bombing that takes place in Pakistan has a "Taliban" label. In the case of the Punjab, it does not.
	Although the war in Afghanistan consumes more of my attention than any other policy area, the Government continue to work for peace and reconciliation in key conflicts around the world. Across the international community, and perhaps especially throughout the Arab world, there is a strong sense that the middle east peace talks are stalled. This is dangerous for the middle east and, I believe, ultimately dangerous for us.
	There is more consensus in the international community than for many years about the basis for a resolution of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians. The Clinton parameters of 2000-01 broadly encapsulated the terms for a viable two-state solution, but the parties are moving further apart, and those Palestinians and Israelis who are committed to the idea of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as a shared capital and a fair settlement for refugees, appear smaller in number and weaker in politics than ever before. The US Administration are engaged in a good-faith endeavour to bridge the gap. Their leadership and determination offer the best current hope of progress. We will continue to support these efforts-for example, supporting Prime Minister Fayyad in his economic and security efforts, and delivering aid into Gaza-and like the US and many others, we will continue to reinforce to the Israeli Government, as I will later today when I meet Deputy Prime Minister Shalom, our deepest concern about settlement activity, including in East Jerusalem, which is not just illegal, but provocative and prejudicial to the chance of peace talks. Israel's democracy and values should place it at the heart of the international mainstream, but these acts only play into the hands of those who wrongly seek to delegitimise its very existence. We will not give up on the dwindling opportunity to deliver a two-state solution, because the alternatives-for the people of Israel, Palestine and the region-look so much worse.

David Miliband: My hon. Friend is right to refer to this as a crisis, except for the fact that, given it has been going on for so long-since the war of last December and January of this year-that the word can become cheapened or devalued. My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue, however, and we continue to raise it. The number of aid trucks being allowed in has risen since early spring, but it remains below the United Nations level-500 trucks a day is, I think, the estimate of what is necessary. My hon. Friend makes an important point, because the danger is that the only people who gain from the current policy are Hamas.

David Miliband: My reading of the Goldstone report suggests that it raises issues for the state of Israel, rather than for individuals involved in the conflict. We have made it clear that the first step in response to that report is for a full and transparent independent inquiry into the allegations to take place.
	On conflict in Africa, in the past year we have seen glimmers of hope in Somalia, with the appointment of President Sharif and the inclusive nature of the Djibouti process. That is important because stability in Somalia will come only through agreement to share power at clan and regional level, and instability there has severe implications for not only the horn of Africa, but the rest of the world. Piracy is just one aspect of that. The House will be pleased to learn that the unity and resolve of the international community in responding to this issue has meant that of those ships following the route that is protected by the EU forces and other navies and complying with industry agreed best practice just one has been hijacked in the gulf of Aden since last December. Safety in the 1 million square miles of the Somali basin is, however, much harder to deliver, as, unfortunately, has been proved by the kidnap of the British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler. The thoughts of the whole House will be with them and those working for their release.
	In eastern Congo, the humanitarian and human rights situation remains dire, but the rapprochement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo means that for the first time in years there is a real chance of progress.

William Hague: The sentences on foreign and defence policy in the Gracious Speech were relatively without controversy and expressed sentiments that unite the House: the seeking of effective international co-operation, the combating of climate change, the objective of working for security, stability and prosperity in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the middle east, and the essential work towards preventing nuclear proliferation are important British national objectives, and everyone should be clear that they will remain so if there is a change of Government in Britain in the coming months.
	I suspect that it will also be easy to agree that the most immediate and worrying of all our foreign policy challenges-indeed, the Foreign Secretary spoke of it as the issue that takes up more of his time than anything else-is the situation in Afghanistan and the related position in Pakistan, partly because sustained progress in Afghanistan has proved so elusive in recent years, partly because it involves such a major and intensive deployment of the British armed forces and partly because those armed forces are making very serious sacrifices, now totalling, as the Foreign Secretary reminded us, 98 British lives lost in action so far this year.
	Once again, therefore, it is appropriate to begin by saluting the extraordinary efforts of our armed forces-something that is particularly in our minds after recent casualties and after Remembrance day, and something that unites the whole nation, even people who cannot imagine what circumstances are like in Afghanistan. But Ministers will agree that those of us who have been to see the work of our troops on the ground find only that our admiration for the work they do is intensified by seeing it in practice.
	There is also a good deal of unity about what we are doing in Afghanistan, although that has not always been clearly and effectively expressed. Simply stated, our objective must be to help Afghans reach the point where they can look after their own security without presenting a danger to the rest of the world. That means doing our utmost not to let Afghanistan fall back into even greater chaos, and it means that, in spite of the immense difficulties involved, the consequences of failure are so serious for the spread of international terrorism, for democracy in Pakistan and for the operations of NATO that it is much better for the world to succeed in that endeavour than to abandon it.
	In our view, there are at least four crucial elements for a revised strategy to succeed because, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said at the beginning of the debate on the address, immediate withdrawal cannot be in our interests, but the status quo is unacceptable as well. The first requirement is the use of true counter-insurgency techniques, about which so much has been learnt in Iraq and in operations in Afghanistan, thus protecting and winning over the local population. The second requirement is the accelerated training of Afghan security forces, about which the Foreign Secretary has spoken. The third requirement is the effective political strategy, which so many people have long called for. The fourth requirement, in our view, is the appointment and acceptance by the Afghan Government of a strong and effective international figure to co-ordinate the economic and development effort and to help to drive that political strategy. We hope that all those elements will be present in the statement now awaited from President Obama.
	Several questions arise for the Government, and perhaps the Secretary of State for Defence can address them when he responds to the debate. First, are the British Government closely influencing the thinking of the US Administration, so that we can be confident that President Obama's forthcoming announcement is one that the British Government wholly endorse?
	Secondly, if the US announcement includes sending large numbers of additional forces, do Ministers envisage extending the number of British forces deployed beyond the 9,500 recently announced? Can they say more about the increase of 500 troops recently announced and about when they expect the conditions set for going ahead with that increase, which includes a greater contribution from other allies, to be met?
	Over the past few weeks, there has been a proliferation of speeches from the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, proposing initiatives for achieving the aims in Afghanistan and presenting a strategy. Although that intensified effort to communicate with the public about Afghanistan is welcome, I hope that the Defence Secretary will clear up one or two important issues that those speeches have raised and questions that they have posed.
	On 6 November, the Prime Minister said that military action in Afghanistan is
	"our first line of defence"
	and that
	"the mission must not fail".
	That issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron), who has since left the Chamber. At the same time, the Prime Minister set five tests for Karzai's new Government-on security, governance, reconciliation, economic development and engagement with neighbours. Those tests appeared to be in conflict. The Foreign Secretary sought to explain in his speech that the Prime Minister was referring to tests for development assistance and that they did not relate to our military presence in Afghanistan, but that is not how the Prime Minister's speech read on 6 November, and it was not how it was understood at the time, so I hope that the Defence Secretary will confirm the Foreign Secretary's clarification.
	Ten days later, the Prime Minister gave another speech on Afghanistan and spoke of starting to hand provinces over to the Afghans in 2010 "if at all possible", and raised the prospect of a timetable for such handovers. Do Ministers agree that it is not possible to have a timetable in a province such as Helmand, which would set a timetable for the Taliban to work to, as well as everyone else? Will they be careful not to exaggerate the significance of such timetables, despite the pressures of a general election campaign here in Britain?
	Thirdly, the Prime Minister used the same speech to re-announce the idea of hosting a conference in London to set out a plan for handing Afghanistan back to the Afghans. He first announced the proposal in September, saying that the conference should be held
	"before the end of this year right after the inauguration of the new Afghan government."
	But that is now. Clearly the conference is not taking place now, and some NATO Foreign Ministers have told me that they are not at all sure it can or should be held early in the new year, as the Prime Minister has now suggested, because it would not be adequately prepared. Can Ministers say when they really expect the conference to take place? Would it not be wiser for the Prime Minister to have a sound basis for such announcements, rather than making repeated announcements-indeed, the same announcement-only for the promised action not to take place?
	Finally on Afghanistan, I hope that Ministers will comment on the latest reports of serious inefficiencies in the provision of appropriate equipment. If it is true, as reported in the press today, that £149 million has been spent upgrading 900 armoured vehicles, which are not then suitable for use, I know that my hon. Friends in the shadow defence team will have some very searching questions to ask, and they will not be satisfied with answers that are less than frank.
	Of course, any strategy for Afghanistan will work only if there is a sufficient effort in Pakistan to deal with those who seek to undermine democracy in that country. The Foreign Secretary rightly spoke of the need to address al-Qaeda in Pakistan as well as the Taliban. Just like in Afghanistan, military involvement is only one of the tools needed to ensure long-term stability. In Britain we will need to continue, in the years ahead, to assist the Government of Pakistan with education, health care and employment, particularly in areas that have been affected by the recent campaigns against insurgents.

William Hague: I think that is enough from the right hon. Gentleman. Marginalised he will remain.
	The Foreign Secretary has denied the reports in the French media that there was a deal with the French Government that in return for Lady Ashton's appointment as High Representative, the Government would agree to a French appointment to the internal market portfolio. Indeed, I received a letter from the Foreign Secretary today saying that such portfolios are a matter for the President of the Commission solely. It showed a certain touching innocence to think that there are no informal negotiations among national Governments about what portfolios are held in the Commission.
	The Defence Secretary probably will not get into this later, but I hope Ministers will be able to say whether it is expected that a French candidate will be given the internal market portfolio, and whether assurances are being sought from the Commission and the French Government that if that happens, the single market will continue to go forward, and that liberalisation, particularly in services and energy, will continue to go forward. I hope we will be told whether assurances are being sought about the position of financial services and whether financial services will be included in the internal market portfolio. These are important considerations for the British national interest.
	We wish Lady Ashton well in her appointment, but it would be a very serious matter if the price of adopting the Government's third choice as High Representative meant that policy on the internal market and on financial services, in particular, was taken in a direction that was not in keeping with the interests of Britain. The Foreign Secretary says that a deal was not done, so we want to know what assurances are being sought on whether the policy will continue to go in the right direction, and what the implications might be for the City of London.
	In summary, the Government spent too long promoting Tony Blair as president of the EU when they were not able to win widespread support for him, even among the socialists; they gave insufficient attention to protecting this country's interests by going for a senior economic portfolio in the Commission; and, they have ended up with their third choice as High Representative, after falling out among themselves over who should go for it, and the First Secretary of State being willing to abandon the Government to go for it himself. That is a pretty sorry state of affairs in the Government of this country.
	We are in many ways pleased that the Foreign Secretary has stayed in post, because there has been enough ministerial chaos in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This is a serious point, because it might be thought that a degree of experience, expertise and continuity in the conduct of foreign policy would be a good thing. However, in the two and a half years that the Foreign Secretary has held his office, he has gone through 14 junior Ministers, none of whom has been with him throughout, and there have been 12 Europe Ministers in 12 years.

William Hague: Oh, there may be a 13th.
	The most recent Europe Minister, Baroness Kinnock, lasted only a few months. Appointing her on 5 June, the Prime Minister said:
	"Glenys...is an excellent Minister for Europe...remember this is about preparing for European Councils, people who will get on with the governments and the rest of the country and persuade them to do things. She's an excellent appointment."
	Yet, three months later, the Prime Minister's spokesman described her low-profile removal as "internal housekeeping", saying that it was a
	"sensible move for both Ministers involved as they both had experience in the subjects"
	of Europe and Africa. He was asked what specific African experience Baroness Kinnock had, and the report of his answer states:
	"He did not have the details in front of him so it was best to speak to the Foreign Office for details."
	That is how things have been moved around.
	Lord Malloch-Brown, the wise eminence-I do not know how the Foreign Secretary has managed without his wise eminence, actually-resigned in July, not long after he admitted what we all know to be the truth-that there is a shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan. He said that the political future for Labour "looks incredibly bleak," chiming in with another of the GOATs, Lord Digby Jones, because the marvellous things about this Government is that the GOATs not only resign, but wander around the pastures bleating afterwards. Lord Jones described his former colleagues as
	"ambitious, confused, frustrated, worried and overworked".
	Looking at them today, I must say that that is a pretty accurate description.

William Hague: I think that the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, wanted to intervene.

William Hague: It may very well happen, but the matter will not come up for a few years now, so it is not exactly an immediate issue. On that subject, however, as I said in my answer to the right hon. Member for Rotherham, we have had no difficulty communicating and, often agreeing with the mainstream in Europe.

William Hague: I am not going to spell out who to the right hon. Gentleman, because I should like him now to keep for ever in his mind the paranoia about who has been plotting against him.
	The High Representative will, however, have some serious work to do, and the Foreign Secretary mentioned some of the foreign policy areas on which Europe needs to work together. One is very much Bosnia, and he knows that I have mentioned the political crisis in Bosnia on many occasions in the past three years. I welcome his personal attention to the very concerning situation in that country; I very much welcome the extension of EUFOR's mandate and its United Nations charter chapter VII authority, and I hope that the mandates of the international judges and prosecutors working in the state court will also be extended before their mandate expires on 15 December.
	The recent communiqué on Bosnia sought to highlight the positive wherever possible, but the fact remains that the country is on a downward trend; that its future is under direct challenge from some political leaders, who deliberately block the work of joint state and entity institutions; and that the future of the Office of the High Representative and the international presence has become a pawn in the hands of some local politicians. However, I put it to the Foreign Secretary that offering the bait of eventual EU membership might not be enough to resolve the immediate crisis. Given that, for example, the Prime Minister of the entity of Republic Srpska openly and repeatedly asserts the autonomy of that entity as a more important goal than joining the EU, does the Foreign Secretary believe that the distant prospect of EU membership is enough to make the political leaders in the country approach talks in a more constructive manner? I hope that he agrees that if no progress is made, the time will soon come for the EU to reinforce its message to Bosnian leaders, with the threat of sanctions against individuals who are deliberately blocking reforms.
	I also welcome Serbia's continued commitment to joining the EU; we understand that Belgrade plans to apply for EU membership before the end of the year. However, a major block remains to Serbia's EU aspirations: the arrest and actual transfer of the two remaining alleged war criminals to The Hague. Will Ministers clarify what the Government's assessment is today of Serbia's co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia? Can they assure the House that Her Majesty's Government's policy remains that ratification of Serbia's stabilisation and association agreement with the EU is contingent on full co-operation with the International Court of Justice, and that that continues to mean the arrest and transfer of those two remaining indictees?

William Hague: I am sorry, but I must now conclude my remarks.
	We hope that there is a successful Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. The Commonwealth has a role to play in conflicts and disputes around the world, but in our view the Government have neglected it over the past 12 years. We hope that they will put that right at the conference.
	We are behind the efforts to secure agreement at the Copenhagen summit on climate change and look for a binding commitment to keeping the rise in global temperatures to below 2° C and to taking action on deforestation.
	I join the Foreign Secretary in welcoming the Sri Lankan Government's announcement. We have all strongly urged the Sri Lankan Government to honour their commitment and return all people to their homes by the end of the year. We want to see a process of healing and reconciliation, which is so desperately required in that country.
	There are immense challenges in foreign policy, which we could all speak about at even greater length than the Foreign Secretary and I have. Where Ministers continue to do the right thing, we will continue to support them. However, there are many searching questions, such as those that I have raised on Afghanistan, that they must be prepared to answer. I hope that we will have those answers at the end of this debate.

Denis MacShane: I support much of the hon. Gentleman's analysis, but is he aware that the four last general manoeuvres that the Indian army have undertaken were all based on the assumption that it was going to invade and occupy Pakistan? Is he also aware that 80 per cent. of all Pakistani troops are, sadly, on the country's eastern frontier with Kashmir, facing half a million Indian troops? I think we would all prefer more of those troops to be on the western front, dealing with Pakistan and its problematic provinces. India therefore has to be part of the solution, and finding some way of de-escalating the Kashmir dispute really ought to be the object of the foreign policy of this country and the other NATO powers.

Edward Davey: I am afraid that I am completely at one with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) on that matter. There must be a danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Taliban or other jihadists if we pull out. Many people have recognised that threat. I do not want to overplay it, but we cannot dismiss it out of hand. Given that the price would be so high, even a small risk must be considered properly.

Edward Davey: Many others have interpreted the position slightly differently, and we have been talking to those people. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife, who is one of Parliament's pre-eminent experts in the field, is examining precisely such issues.
	On Iran, no one can doubt that the situation remains alarming, and I agree in part with the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. I also agree with others about the need to condemn the way Iran has treated our consular employees. The shocking recent International Atomic Energy Agency report says much about how Iran has been deceiving the world, yet the current question for policy makers on Iran is whether the diplomatic engagement and negotiations have reached the end of the road and it is now time for sanctions or whether there is room still for at least one more go at negotiations. Even if one could be sure that Russia would support tougher United Nations sanctions-and I am not-the recent discussions on a deal over uranium for the Tehran research reactor seemed to me still to have real life in them. As the Foreign Secretary alluded to earlier, it is true that the Iranians are insisting that any uranium swap occurs in Iran, not outside Iran, but would the Six really want to be responsible for walking away from the diplomatic route because they were unwilling to compromise on the detail of a deal? I hope not. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks may be right that we need to prepare some of the background for sanctions, but I would keep the tool of sanctions in the box at least for a little while longer, because if a deal is struck on the uranium swap, the chances of getting Iran to discuss the military dimension and the outstanding issues increases. Indeed, those chances could be improved if they were combined with a focus on other issues of common concern, especially, of course, Afghanistan.
	While the nuclear issue as it relates to North Korea gets less attention in this House-it has not been spoken about today-I urge the Government to do all they can to get the Pyongyang regime back to the Six-power talks. Too often we appear to believe that North Korea is fundamentally a show for the US and China to work on with South Korea, and we underplay the role of the European Union. I want to speak more about the new EU High Representative later, but given Baroness Ashton's success in trade talks with South Korea, perhaps she has the contacts and understanding to help make a breakthrough if the Council were to empower her to explore the options. This needs to be more of a priority for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
	Obviously, the nuclear issue is only one of many where a multilateral, multi-polar approach to foreign policy is essential. However, as other colleagues will no doubt speak at length on issues such as the climate change conference, the need for the G20 to collaborate on the economy, or the millennium development goals, I will not touch on them now, but I want to reflect briefly on some of the continuing challenges for multilateralism, beginning with the role of China.
	There is much to welcome about the role of China, and the part it wishes to play in the world. China's economic influence is well known, and the Chinese response to the global recession has been helpful. In some respects, the proposals from the Chinese on climate change reveal real leadership and understanding, but China's approach in all too many countries and its focus on economic issues before and above any consideration of other, wider concerns, such as humanitarian issues or international law, is alarming.
	Let me give a few examples. In Sri Lanka, the Chinese sold large amounts of weapons to the Sri Lankan Government and in return have been allowed many commercial opportunities, especially in terms of the development of a massive port in Sri Lanka that is of strategic economic and security importance to the Chinese. Far from not interfering in domestic politics, as the Chinese protest is their position, that policy was calculated and deliberate. While I welcome the Sri Lankan Government's announcement that they are to allow those in the internally displaced person camps to move freely, surely that remains an inadequate response to the humanitarian disaster in some of those camps. Moreover, that announcement was certainly not a result of pressure from the Chinese, but it may well have been a result of pressure from the EU, which proposed not to renew the generalised system of preferences-GSP-plus trade concessions. I hope the Government and the EU are not going to go soft on the GSP plus trade concessions and our concerns about human rights in Sri Lanka just because of this weekend's announcement.
	The Chinese are easily the largest foreign investors in Sudan, and probably also the largest market for its oil. At the United Nations, the Chinese have blocked stronger international progress and appear to have done nothing behind the scenes to get the Khartoum Government to stop the actions of the Janjaweed and other Government-backed militias in Darfur.
	Elsewhere in Africa, from Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we see the Chinese winning knock-down deals, partly because their contracts come with no questions asked. There are apologists who say, "Well, the west has done exactly the same" or "China has brought lots of investment." Well, that may be so, but I do not believe that such investments inevitably require a power such as China to adopt an amoral stance. There are plenty of examples of investment in developing countries being used smartly to lever improvements for their wider population-this is a question of political will. China would win more friends and influence, and would boost the multilateralism it professes, if it wielded its economic muscle in more enlightened ways-I hope that President Obama has been saying as much on his recent trip.
	As we approach the end of the first year of President Obama's first term, many commentators are circling to lambast him for the lack of progress, but on the big issues they are utterly wrong. On Afghanistan, they say that he has delayed, but I think that he is right not to rush. On Iran, they say that he has been too willing to focus on diplomacy, but I think that he needs to be encouraged to stick with it. On the middle east, they say that he has made little progress, but I think he has been courageous and right to expose Israel on the critical issue of the settlements. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Likud and their coalition partners are in real danger of totally isolating and undermining the moderate Palestinians and Arabs-people who have been patient and moderate despite all the humiliations. For Israel's sake, I hope that the Israeli Government wake up soon and realise that while settlement expansion continues it is simply unreasonable to expect any Palestinian leader to negotiate.
	Of course we know that Israelis still suffer dreadfully under the threat of terrorist attack, especially from the rockets of Hamas and others, and the international community must always remember to condemn such indiscriminate attacks made on civilians populations, but how does alienating Palestinians from their more moderate leaders in Fatah and elsewhere hinder and hurt Hamas? How does the continuing blockade of Gaza win over the Palestinians? Obama must try to get Netanyahu to face up to that political reality. If he does not, I fear that the long-term peace and security Israel rightly craves and deserves will be postponed still further.
	I wish to touch briefly on two issues before concluding, the first of which is the European Union and the second of which is Iraq. We are to have a debate on European affairs shortly, so I will keep my remarks on the EU particularly short. However, given the significance of the recent final ratification of the Lisbon treaty and the decisions for the new President of the European Council and the High Representative, I want to welcome the opportunity Europe has to press ahead and act more effectively on the practical European and international problems that affect our constituents, be they on the economy, the environment or organised crime.
	With the institutional wrangling over, the EU can be more effective on foreign and security policy than in the past. Of course that will not happen overnight-it was never going to-but with the sensible appointments of Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Cathy Ashton, real progress will be made. The Foreign Secretary had argued that we needed a President of the European Council who would stop the traffic in Beijing. That was not only wrong, but it was the reverse of how he and his colleagues sold the provisions for this post in this House and in the public debate. The then Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr. Murphy), and I both argued that these posts were rightly constrained by the requirements for unanimity on foreign and security policy, and were about greater efficiency and effectiveness. The Conservatives and others sought to ignore that reality; they scaremongered about European Presidents and Foreign Ministers as if the new posts came with great decision-making powers, whereas, in reality, they are the servants of the nation states. It would serve the argument against Euroscepticism better if the Foreign Secretary's line on Europe was more consistent and if he left the confusion on Europe to the Conservatives. Pro-Europeans need to take the European debate to the Conservatives on foreign policy, be that on EU-Russia relations, the middle east or elsewhere.
	The Foreign Secretary opened this debate with an upbeat assessment of the situation in Iraq, but when one reads a lot of the reports, one finds that the political and economic situation there is extremely fragile. Of course we hope that more progress will be made, but Britain and the others who invaded Iraq need to be there to ensure that we deliver on our development commitments. When the Iraq inquiry was announced, the Liberal Democrats raised serious concerns about its structure, timetable and membership. On the eve of its opening its public sessions, new concerns have arisen. The Cabinet Office recently published a protocol on the documents for that inquiry, which specifically excludes some documents even going to the inquiry and puts a series of restrictions on what documents the inquiry can publish. I do not believe that that is delivering on what the Prime Minister promised when he announced the inquiry. Many others are concerned about how the secretariat for the inquiry is being staffed not by lots of outside experts in a mixture with civil servants, but by people who were all in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or in the defence and the intelligence services at the time. We believe that they do not give the inquiry the independence that it needs.
	Our foreign policy deliberations will remain scarred over the question of the Iraq war unless and until the inquiry is got right. We should have learned the lessons earlier and I believe that our efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere would be rather more effective if this inquiry had happened earlier. I hope that it will be able to deliver the full, independent and comprehensive verdict that we need to go forward.

Mike Gapes: I accept that there are big problems. Another problem is the continued failure of the Zimbabwe Government, under the leadership of Mugabe, to allow Roy Bennett, a Minister, to be released from detention and to take his place within the political system. Other issues have also led to difficulties, but I believe that it is important that we in this country give support to those in southern Africa who are trying to achieve political progress in Zimbabwe.
	I have also recently met trade unionists from Swaziland and Zimbabwe, who have expressed their concerns about the situation that faces so many people in southern Africa. In the context of Swaziland, it is unfortunate that the British Government decided, because of financial pressures, to close the high commissions in Mbabane in Swaziland and in Maseru in Lesotho a few years ago. Our new high commissioner in South Africa, Nicola Brewer, recently-last month-exchanged her credentials and went to Swaziland, where she gave an important message to King Mswati about the need to ensure that the Swazi constitution is upheld and that steps are taken towards democracy in that complex society. I hope that message will be received in that small but important Commonwealth country. I declare an interest: I was a teacher for Voluntary Service Overseas in Swaziland in 1971, so I retain an interest in the situation in the country.
	I turn to another Commonwealth country-Sri Lanka. Reference has already been made to the announcement this week by the Sri Lankan authorities that they will allow the temporary departure of people still held in detention camps. A few months ago, up to 280,000 people were in those camps. Just last week, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, the British diplomat John Holmes, visited the camps in Sri Lanka. When he was interviewed for BBC world news on 19 November, he said that 140,000 people had been allowed to leave and that the situation was improving, but he drew attention to a number of concerns. The Sri Lankan Government need to act on them, including the fact that UN officials are still detained by the Sri Lankan authorities several months after the end of the conflict. That is not acceptable. The officials must be released as soon as possible.
	If Sri Lanka is to become a prosperous state, it has to deal with its internal political dynamics and the feelings of alienation among a substantial number of its citizens. Tamil Sri Lankans are important to the standing of Sri Lanka in the world, because there is a huge diaspora, including in London. Many thousands are in my borough of Redbridge. Members of Parliament know from our conversations with our Sri Lankan Tamil constituents of their terrible anguish and concern about the situation in their homeland. It is important that there is real political devolution and reconciliation in that island in the future.
	As part of its responsibilities over recent years the Foreign Affairs Committee has looked at a number of areas of the world. Last year, one of our reports highlighted the British overseas territories. We made a number of recommendations and criticisms, as a result of which the British Government established a commission of inquiry, under Sir Robin Auld, into the situation in the Turks and Caicos Islands. That led to recommendations for the suspension of the TCI Government and the reimposition of direct government from the UK.
	A number of communications have been sent to me and members of the Committee over recent weeks from people living in TCI. Some of them are concerned about the bubbling discontent within society. People associated with the former Premier, Michael Misick, are lobbying and doing their very best to undermine the Governor, Gordon Wetherell, who was appointed last year.
	Another concern was raised in a letter copied to me and other Members. The letter was sent to the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the Leader of the Opposition, by Shaun Malcolm, a former leading opposition politician in the Turks and Caicos Islands. It says:
	"I write to you in reference to your Deputy Chairman, Lord Michael Ashcroft, and the possibility that the Conservatives may form the next government in Britain.
	We respectfully and sincerely ask for your written assurance that Lord Ashcroft will not be influencing, directly or indirectly, decisions regarding the Turks and Caicos Islands should the Conservatives win the next election, and if you are willing to give us these assurances then we kindly ask for you to work with us now to establish tangible safeguards towards this goal."
	The letter then goes on to quote the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee and praises three members of our Committee: the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), whom I see in his place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) and the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch). They visited the islands, and on their recommendation, our Committee published the report. Shaun Malcolm says:
	"As I am sure you are aware, under the guidance of the FAC, and in particular through the valiant efforts of these men...the Foreign and Commonwealth Office initiated a Commission of Inquiry",
	to which I have already referred. He continues:
	"The Commission of Inquiry's findings led to an Order in Council that has resulted in direct rule of the Turks and Caicos Islands coming into effect on August 14, 2009. Most thinking citizens and residents of the TCI are grateful for the intervention and look to work hand in hand with the British to rebuild our institutions of governance.
	The people of the TCI have passed through an extremely dark period. The media in the islands was bought or intimidated, free speech was restrained, and much like dissidents in China, we had to go to the Internet to get beyond the intimidation of the local government to inform our citizens and the world community about what was happening here.
	Your Deputy Chairman, Lord Ashcroft, and his son Andrew Ashcroft, have been deeply involved in the affairs of the TCI for much of this last decade, to the point where his bank, Belize Bank TCI, recently renamed as British Caribbean Bank, is now the largest banking institution within these islands, as stated by him. Sir Robin's Inquiry found that many of the questionable transactions involving local politicians during these last six years were financed by Lord Ashcroft's bank.
	As well, their alleged involvement with local property development and environmental holocausts such as the Leeward Development on Provindenciales have caused grave concerns within our small territory.
	Due to his willingness to contribute to both political parties, as well as the small size of our population and economy-only 30,000 citizens and residents in total-Lord Ashcroft's wealth and his willingness to use it, has and does give him a level of influence that we feel puts any hope of democracy here at risk."
	And he goes on to- [ Interruption. ]

John Stanley: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), who we on the Foreign Affairs Committee remember as a Minister with a refreshing propensity to deviate from the official brief. The right hon. Gentleman, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and the Front Benchers rightly focused on Afghanistan, and I wish to pay my own tribute to the extraordinary courage and skill of our service personnel there.
	I wish to devote my time to the situation in the western Balkans, which I visited last month with other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In the three most difficult countries, we face a time-critical issue. In Serbia, the bicycle analogy is now something of a cliché, but I think that it is applicable in this case. The reality is that we will probably not maintain the forward-looking Government of President Tadic unless there is continuing momentum towards EU accession. Although the EU has managed to sign up to, but not ratify, the stabilisation and association agreement for Serbia, there is now an impasse created by the Dutch position. We all understand that the Dutch are still transfixed by the passive role played by Dutch UN forces around the time of the Srebrenica massacre. It is still an explosive issue in the Netherlands, and it has already brought down one Dutch Government. However, having recognised the political realities in the Netherlands, I have to say that it is not reasonable to impose on Serbia conditions for making progress with its EU accession that are simply not realisable.
	My right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary mentioned the phrase "full co-operation with the ICTY", but the new chief prosecutor for the ICTY, Serge Brammertz, has said that he will not use that phrase, as he believes that it has become politicised. It is not therefore a realistic hurdle to put in front of Serbia. We all want to see Mladic and Hadzic alongside Karadzic in The Hague, but the issue is whether Mladic is still in Serbia. The Serbian Government can deliver only those people within their territories.
	The key issue will come next week, when we get the next report by Mr. Brammertz. That will be followed by an EU Foreign Ministers meeting the following week. My information is that the Brammertz report is likely to be as favourable as is reasonably possible as far as Serbia is concerned, and in the discussions that we had with Ministers in Belgrade, they were all determined to co-operate fully with the ICTY and to do their best to find Mladic and Hadzic if they were in Serbia. I therefore very much hope that if the ICTY report comes out as I believe it will, the Government and the Foreign Secretary will take the two crucial steps at the forthcoming EU Foreign Ministers meeting that will be necessary to keep Serbia's EU accession going forward. Those steps will be making progress towards unblocking the implementation of the interim agreement under Serbia's SAA, and beginning the EU ratification process for Serbia's SAA.
	Let me move from discussing Serbia to dealing with the position in Kosovo, where we also have grounds for a reasonable degree of cautious optimism. Among the Serbian municipalities, the municipality elections in Kosovo two years ago were effectively a write-off. There was virtually no turnout at all. In contrast, the elections two years later, which have just been completed-I refer to those south of the Ibar river-have been a remarkable success. The turnout has averaged between 20 and 25 per cent., which is a dramatic improvement and a dramatic increase in the willingness of Kosovo Serbs now to participate in elections organised from Pristina.
	The critical issue now is what will happen in the elections for the two remaining Serbian municipalities, in particular north Mitrovica. President Sejdiu has wisely deferred those elections for six months, until 15 May next year, to enable the maximum possible time to ensure that they are held on a free and fair basis. That will be a serious challenge in north Mitrovica. The area is dominated by Serb hardliners. Their control is exercised by threat, intimidation, telephone calls threatening actions if people participate and knocks on the door at night. In the past, those intimidatory tactics have had considerable success.
	A huge responsibility now lies with EULEX, the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo. EULEX is the largest civilian deployment under the European security and defence policy, and something of the ESDP's civilian credibility hangs on its success. EULEX has six months flat to try to create conditions in Kosovo under which the elections can be held on what we hope will be a reasonably free and fair basis in north Mitrovica. If that can be achieved, we shall have moved a long way to maintaining the integration of Kosovo and creating conditions in which its progress towards EU accession can take place.
	I come finally to Bosnia and Herzegovina. My right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary was entirely correct in his opening remarks when he referred to the fact that the position in Bosnia and Herzegovina is going backwards. As we are all aware, the constitutional arrangements that are now in place were a brilliant triumph at the point at which they were concluded-in other words, the Dayton peace agreement of 1995, which had the hugely beneficial effect of stopping the terrible bloodshed taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was the most serious violence and bloodshed to have taken place in Europe since the end of world war two.
	That peace agreement was achieved at a price. The price was a constitution that contains a series of ethnic blocks-blocks at the state level; blocks at the entity level; block after block after block. Although the agreement brought peace, it has not brought a constitution that is viable in terms of a governmental decision process for EU accession. The EU recognises that, the US recognises it, the Bosniaks recognise it and the Bosnian Croatians recognise it. The one group that does not, of course, is the Bosnian Serbs. At the moment, unless they can be persuaded to amend the Dayton constitution and to create a viable governmental structure at the top to deal with EU accession, the impasse will continue.
	This issue is also time critical. The present EU-US negotiating team will not be in play for ever; it is time limited. Indeed, I would say that it is crucial that progress be made in the next two or three months. I hope that the British Government, along with our EU and US partners, will use all possible influence to prevail on Mr. Dodik, and to make him understand the reality that he is taking the Republika Srpska into a complete cul de sac. There is no future for the people of the Republika Srpska if it is an isolated, supposedly independent, mini-state with no prospect of going anywhere. I do not believe that it will receive material support from Serbia for much longer, if at all, and I do not think that it can hope for very much from the Russians either. It is in a cul de sac, and Mr. Dodik needs to be persuaded that that is the case, so that Bosnia and Herzegovina can make progress.
	Over the past 15 years, we in the EU, the US and Britain as an individual country have all invested enormous amounts of time, effort, money and resources into the western Balkans. I earnestly believe that, having made that investment, we cannot allow any of those countries to fail.

Ann Clwyd: We have heard much this afternoon, particularly from the Liberal Democrats, of the virtues of taking tea with people who change their point of view to one's own point of view. The Foreign Secretary is having tea with Mr. Shalom this afternoon, and I wish him luck. The last time I, as chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Union middle east committee, had tea with Mr. Shalom was in Tel Aviv. He had been perfectly pleasant until I mentioned Palestinian prisoners, but then, unfortunately, he almost leapt over the dining room table to get me by the throat. So I sincerely hope the Foreign Secretary is luckier than I am, but I suspect that he will not be.
	My right hon. Friend and neighbour, the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) and I disagree about very little, except perhaps the leadership of the Welsh Assembly, on which we profoundly disagree. I should like to follow up on some of the points that he made, but I want to spend the time available today talking about Iraq. For the first time in many years, the Queen's Speech did not mention Iraq. The complex issues relating to that country have dominated so many debates, questions and speeches in the House in recent years, and I feel that it is important to use this moment to highlight the important progress that has been made, and to remind the House of some of the issues that still need further attention.
	I spoke to President Talabani of Iraq when he was here in London recently to attend the very moving memorial service for UK troops who had been involved in operations there. I was struck by the fact that, despite all the difficulties that Iraq has faced since the overthrow of Saddam, the President retains an unwavering belief that it was the right thing to do. It is clear from talking to him, and almost any other Iraqi, that ultimately only they can solve Iraq's problems. The role of the UK and coalition forces was to get them to the point at which they had a realistic prospect of success. I have full confidence in the determination of the Government and the people of Iraq to ensure that the country continues on its path to stability.
	Iraq's internal dynamics have changed significantly over the past 18 months, and I believe that it is now a nation that has changed for the better. There have been significant improvements on security, the economy and politics. Millions of Iraqis now have control over their own destiny. The Iraqi people have embraced democracy with great enthusiasm. The parliamentary elections in December 2005 saw a turnout of around 80 per cent., and provincial elections were held successfully in January this year, again with a very high turnout. National elections are due to take place in January 2010 and will provide another opportunity for Iraqis to embrace democracy. The Iraqi Parliament and the Council of Representatives are both steadily maturing as a voice for the people.
	There are difficulties and delays in passing a new electoral law to regulate the next elections and the composition of the new Iraqi Parliament. Again, however, 25 per cent. of the places are going to be set aside for women, which is a point worth making here. It is another welcome sign that difficulties are being battled out in the political arena rather than on the streets.
	The attempts by some to throw progress off course, as seen in the terrible bomb attacks on key ministries in Baghdad in August and October, have not had their desired impact. The response from Iraqis has been to deal with matters in a mature and considered manner. I sincerely hope that all the main political leaders in Iraq will continue to work together in a spirit of compromise and for the interests of all Iraq. Not doing so risks damaging the recent gains in security and political progress.
	It is clear that many challenges remain in ensuring peace and stability in Iraq. Starting from such a low base, it is inevitable that work remains to bring about an effective human rights culture in Iraq. In my continuing role as the Prime Minister's special envoy on human rights in Iraq, I continue to engage with a wide range of Iraqis-both here and in Iraq-to help this process along. I urge those I meet to continue to focus their efforts on ensuring that the rule of law is respected.
	The number of detainees held without trial has dropped considerably over the past 18 months, but sustained effort to ensure that those remaining are either released or made to face trial is needed. All those subject to the Iraqi legal system should be dealt with in a timely and humane manner.
	Freedom of expression was an area that suffered greatly under Saddam. Since 2003, a vibrant media reflecting a wide spectrum of views has sprung up. There are signs of some efforts to curb the effectiveness of the media, with new regulations and legislation under consideration. This is a subject that I intend to raise when I visit Iraq shortly and meet key activists working to protect the rights of journalists. I discussed the challenges faced by the media in Iraq at one of the programmes of ongoing human rights forums or round tables held by the Foreign Office this year, which I chaired.
	Industry in Iraq continues to recover and international trade links are being re-established. British companies assisted by UK Trade & Investment are showing more interest in doing business in Iraq. To support their efforts, the UKTI staff in our diplomatic missions in Iraq have been bolstered. BP and the Iraqi Government signed a new deal earlier this month to help revitalise the Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq, which should dramatically increase oil production and revenue for the Iraqi Government.
	There is much work still to be done to protect the rights of Iraqi workers. The British TUC, which I thank very much, continues to assist in many ways. There remain in place many Saddam era regulations restricting the rights of trade unions and preventing public sector workers from joining the union of their choosing. I am pleased to hear that a campaign launched by the Iraqi permanent co-ordination committee of trade unions and professional associations is gathering momentum. I note with some satisfaction that on 13 November President Talabani himself signed up to their campaign calling for more equitable labour laws.
	I have raised from the start concerns about the treatment of women in Iraqi society. Women continue to face many problems in their day-to-day lives. Article 41 of the constitution could seriously affect the rights of women and I hope it will be revisited in the ongoing constitutional discussions. So-called "honour-based" violence has been reported as on the increase in many parts of Iraq. This is not a religious or an Islamic practice, but something rooted in the traditions of the clans and tribes. I have encouraged the leadership in Iraq, particularly the Kurds in the north, to speak out against it and to treat any "honour" crime just like any other crime. The considerable abilities of the new Kurdish Prime Minister, Barham Salih-he has visited this House several times-will, I think, be used to good effect in Iraqi Kurdistan, and I am sure that we would all want to send our good wishes to him. He has been an excellent Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and I am sure that the Kurds will benefit from having him as Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan.
	I plan to visit Iraq again before the end of the year and am sure that, as in each of my previous visits since 2003, I will see further evidence of improvements. I know I will meet Iraqis who are committed to the future of their country and to seeing peace and prosperity. I know I will meet such people because they form the overwhelming majority of the population. I am sure that they will be pleased to hear that Iraq is no longer such a regular source of bad news and that they will not be at all offended that this year they did not even get a mention from Her Majesty the Queen in her Gracious Speech.
	I finish with a short announcement. On 1 December, our present ambassador in Iraq will be coming here to answer questions. The Foreign Minister will also be present, as will the chargé d'affaires from the Iraqi embassy. I hope that those interested in Iraq will come along on 1 December to ask any questions that I have not been able to answer today.

John Maples: We have heard some interesting speeches on Afghanistan. The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and the right hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) looked at the same facts and came to rather different conclusions. The problem I have with the right hon. Gentleman's analysis is that we cannot act unilaterally. We went in there with the United States, and we have to come out with them; we cannot conduct a unilateral withdrawal. The problem I have with the analysis of the hon. Member for Halton is that it does not acknowledge that it is our very presence that has focused, if not caused, the insurgency. That is a big factor. We have succeeded in uniting against us most of the Afghan insurgency, as we did in Iraq. I do not want to discuss Afghanistan, however, although I have a few words to say about it. Instead, I want to talk about the conduct of foreign policy over the last 12 years and how it will change if my party wins the next general election, because some serious and fundamental errors have been made.
	When Robin Cook became Foreign Secretary, he made a speech about setting out what he called an ethical foreign policy, as though, somehow, previous foreign policy had not been ethical. There was also talk about being a force for good in the world. I think this has led us into making some serious errors-unintentionally, and in many ways with the best intentions, it has led us into error.
	In many respects, this is a rerun of the old argument about whether one should promote one's interests or one's values in foreign policy. I think the answer is both, but values certainly seem to have taken the upper hand over the last 12 years. They have led to a series of errors. I want to comment on two of them, one of which is merely irritating, but the other one of which is dangerous.
	The irritating error is the predilection of the current Foreign Secretary and his predecessors for gratuitous moralising about what goes on in other countries where we have no influence and no interest. We get this the whole time; certain other countries get almost daily lectures from the Foreign Secretary about how they ought to conduct their affairs. He does it in an arrogant and patronising way, too. He has said,
	"we want to see...Russia on a different course",
	and that he has have been talking to President Assad
	"for over 18 months...about his responsibilities in the region".
	How does the Foreign Secretary think that sounds to those countries, and in what way does it possibly promote our interests? This reached its ridiculous conclusion in his comments on Sri Lanka. He criticised its Government-who were finally coming to grips with the Tamil terrorists and the insurgency-and then, when the Tamils expected some support, he gave them none and we ended up with a huge demonstration in Parliament square. We had no dog in that fight; we had no interest and absolutely no influence. What was the point of that gratuitous comment?
	That approach comes from people assuming they have somehow taken the moral high ground because they have asserted it, and they are therefore entitled to tell other people how they think they ought to conduct their affairs. I think foreign policy is about something different, however: if we have an interest we pursue it, and if we have the power to affect an outcome, we use it, but we do not make gratuitous comments, particularly from a moral point of view, about what other people do if we do not have either that interest or that power.
	How would we react if President Assad started making comments on our fiscal irresponsibility over the last few years, or the Chinese President criticised us over our rather weak financial regulation? We would be pretty unhappy about it, and I think the press and Members in all parts of this House would unite in opposition to such criticism. Such comment sounds arrogant, and if a first-world country directs it at a third-world country, it does not just sound arrogant, it sounds neo-imperialist as well. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) becomes Foreign Secretary-which I very much hope he will in a few months' time-I hope he will resist the temptation to comment, particularly from a moral point of view, on issues over which we have no influence and little, or no, interest.
	That is merely the irritating aspect of this so-called ethical foreign policy, however; the dangerous bit is the predilection for intervention. That has been a growing tendency, and it seems to me that no lessons have been learned from one such episode to the next. That is, of course, where ethical foreign policy, or a moral crusade, leads-military intervention. We had a little bit of success in Sierra Leone, and I think that whetted the appetite. That episode involved a gang of essentially armed robbers trying to take over a west African country, and that might be about the extent of what we can take care of by ourselves. We watched the United States' success in Bosnia, but there was a very specific objective-to get the Serbs to the negotiating table in Dayton-and force was used to achieve that. Our first adventure was therefore Kosovo. That war was probably illegal; there was certainly no United Nations Security Council cover for it-we did not even try to get it, because we knew we could not. I think we were very lucky in Kosovo. We were on the verge of having to invade-of having to send our Army in-and I do not know what the result would have been. One day, I would love to know what Martti Ahtisaari and Viktor Chernomyrdin said to Milosevic that made him back down over Kosovo, but I think we ought to thank God that they did what they did, because otherwise we would have ended up in the kind of mess that we have ended up in in other places where we have intervened. It is so easy to start these things, and so difficult to see where they will go.
	We then went into Iraq, which exposed the dubious legality of our actions-by implication there was the need to revive a previous UN Security Council resolution. We also then found that the grounds for the war-the weapons of mass destruction-not only did not exist, but the method by which the Government had come to their conclusions was cruelly exposed to the light of day by the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which I served at the time, and subsequently by other inquiries. We were, at best, misled, and intelligence was manipulated to political ends that seemed to me to justify decisions that had already been taken. Both we and the Americans had initial military success in Iraq. We were welcomed as liberators, but it was not long before we were being targeted as insurgents by nationalist groups of one sort or another. I believe that the entire mission conducted by us and the Americans in Iraq acted as both a recruiting sergeant and a training ground for al-Qaeda and its terrorists. They were not in Iraq before, and it certainly gave them a lot of practice. It also gave them something by which to recruit people to its cause-the idea that a western army was on Islamic soil. We should have learned the lessons from that before we went into Afghanistan again in 2006. Whatever success we had in Iraq-the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) set that out-has to be set against the fact that we have left the region less stable than it was, and that the big winner is Iran, which now does not have a stable, strong country on its western border to act as its counterweight. We are now dealing, at least in part, with the consequences of that, in a much more assertive and much stronger Iran, because it knows that there is nobody in the region who can take it on and stop it.
	After Iraq, we went to phase two in Afghanistan. We had cleared the Taliban out in 2001-02, but in 2006 we went back in. Almost as an afterthought, we went into Helmand, and the then Defence Secretary said it was to protect the provincial reconstruction teams. We sent in 3,000 troops and he rather optimistically hoped they would come out without a shot being fired; that is obviously what he thought would happen, too, although he now says that is not so. The reason given for that action was to protect the provincial reconstruction teams, but the Prime Minister said that a large part of our mission was to stop the heroin trade-the hon. Member for Halton also referred to that. In answer to a question from me, the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), said recently that girls' education was a crucial ingredient in our mission. The Prime Minister has talked about building a democratic state. This is not mission creep; it is mission gallop. We went in there to protect an aid effort; we have ended up trying to build a democratic state.
	I now see that our objectives have reduced to training up the Afghan security forces so they can support the Government. The decision to reduce our objectives is, I suppose, one way of getting our capabilities and objectives into line. However, we never had a clear objective, and our presence there has fuelled the insurgency; I have just made that point. It is our very presence as foreigners that has united the various forces in the Afghan opposition against us. They do not like foreigners on their soil, and I dare say we would not like them very much on ours. We should have cleared the Taliban out and then pursued a different strategy. We are there now and it is not that easy just to leave, but we should recognise that our presence produces and fuels the insurgency.
	The biggest and most misleading of all the reasons given for our being in Afghanistan is that it makes the streets of Britain safe-it palpably does not. There were serious bombings here in 2005, most of which originated either here or in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan. The idea that al-Qaeda has no place to go aside from Pakistan is nonsense, because there are masses of failed or semi-failed states around, some of which have been mentioned. Those that have not are in the Islamic part of north Africa-in Mail, in Mauritania and in the southern bits of some of the other countries there, which are not really under the control of their Governments. Al-Qaeda is already operating in those places and it has plenty of places to go to if we deny it Afghanistan. If we want to stop al-Qaeda bombing people on the streets of Britain, we have to do so with our own security and intelligence forces, not by fighting foreign wars, which are as likely to stir al-Qaeda up as deter it.
	In no way do I intend to detract from the fantastic performance that our Army and military have put in. One could not read "A Million Bullets", as I have done, without being incredibly impressed at what these people have been doing. However, one had to ask at the end: what has been achieved by all that incredible bravery and loss of life? It was difficult to see that much had been sustained. What has been lacking is a clear political objective. If we had had one, we might have been able to put behind it the clear political support for which the hon. Member for Halton was calling. In times of economic hardship, it is also worth reflecting on how much this has cost. It has cost £12 billion and it is costing £3.5 billion a year, but the cost is not just the treasure-it is also the blood. Every Wednesday, we are reminded of the cost of this action in human life.
	I am glad that President Obama is giving serious thought to what our mission should be and what resources we need to accomplish it, but I hope that those two things are matched up. I say that because one of the things that flows out of all these interventions is that they increase instability; we become the target by being in these places and we fuel terror and al-Qaeda, acting as a recruiting sergeant while these places act as a training ground for it. This is a bad precedent to set. We may think that it is good for us, but when Chinese marines invade the Philippines or-dare I say this-the Gulf, in pursuit of what they see as a humanitarian mission, we will regret inventing it
	I hope that we will see an end to gratuitous moralising in the conduct of foreign policy in the next few years-I hope that will start at some point this spring. I hope that we will see intervention only when it can be quick and successful or where it is clearly and essentially in our national interest. I hope that we will stop seeing foreign policy, as we have so often seen it with Labour Foreign Secretaries, as some sort of reality TV show in which the Foreign Secretary of the day has to give his view on everything, irrespective of whether it is our business, and struts his stuff on the world stage, looking good and lecturing others. Foreign policy is about the long-term protection and enhancement of the United Kingdom's interests. Sometimes that will involve the promotion of democracy, but more often it will, and should be, about achieving stability.

David Winnick: It is on the latter remarks about Afghanistan where I agree with the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), because I have considerable doubts about our military presence there and how long British troops should be involved. However, as he said, none of that should in any way question the bravery of the troops, and again I pay tribute, as I did during a recent Prime Minister's Question Time, to the memory of those who have died in action and to those who have been seriously injured.
	The decision, taken with other NATO powers, to engage in Afghanistan in 2001 was justified and I supported it. I cannot recall whether a vote took place on it, but I would certainly have voted in favour on any such vote. The Taliban refused to expel al-Qaeda following 9/11; they were given time to do so, but they refused and that was why military action started. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman took the view that I did at the time. There can also be no doubt as to the sheer brutality of Taliban rule, although that was not the reason for the invasion. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) was right to say that we did not go into Afghanistan because of the brutality of Taliban rule or drugs and so on; we went in for the reasons that I have just stated. In so far as the NATO presence has changed certain things for the better, for example, with the reopening of schools where women can be educated and the ending of barbaric practices carried out by the Taliban, that is obviously all to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the reason for the military intervention should not be forgotten because it is the basis for the justification for our being there; it arose from 9/11 and what was seen as the acute danger to our country, as well as to other NATO states.
	That was eight years ago and it is perfectly understandable, given the casualties that occur week in, week out, that Afghanistan should so dominate today's debate. Eight years is a long time-the first world war lasted four years and the second world war lasted six years-which is why I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), a former Defence Minister, about his comment about there being no time limit. Some of the contributions that we have heard today would give the impression that this began only recently-one, two or three years ago-whereas it began eight years ago. The question then arises, as it should do: how much longer will this go on? It is all very well to say that there should be no time limit, but are we to work on the basis that another eight years should elapse and so many more should die? Why pick eight years? Why not operate on the basis of even longer, given that there appears to be no time limit of any kind? General Richards, who is now the Chief of the General Staff, said in August that
	"the whole process"-
	in Afghanistan-
	"might take as long as 30 to 40 years".
	He did not say that the troop involvement should be of that duration, mentioning 2014 as a possible date for the ending of the British military intervention. Two years ago, the then commander of the UK forces in Helmand province was talking about British forces remaining there for more than 30 years.
	There is undoubtedly much public concern and anxiety at the number of casualties and young lives being lost, but this is not simply about that. In 1979, 18 soldiers were killed by IRA vehicle bombs at Warrenpoint and although the reaction in this country was obviously one of deep anger, nobody suggested that because of the 18 that were murdered then or the others who had been murdered on other occasions we should leave Northern Ireland. It was clearly understood what the position was: there could be no question of Britain being forced out of Northern Ireland by terrorism. However, as the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon and others have said, questions are inevitably being asked about whether it is possible to achieve victory in Afghanistan and what sort of victory could be achieved. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said that when we talk of victory-this is more or less a summary of what he said-we are not talking about what happened at the end of the second world war. So what is "victory" in Afghanistan? How long will it be before such a victory takes place, if one is at all possible?
	The constant position of the Government and of the Opposition parties is, as has been set out today, that if we are not fighting in Afghanistan, we will be fighting on the streets of Britain-either we fight terrorism there or here. Although there is a question as to what we mean by "victory", let us suppose-this is very much a supposition-that the Taliban were so decisively defeated that they would be unable to make a comeback in years. Would we in Britain really then feel that much safer from terrorism? Would we let our guard down? Would we feel that the various measures taken to protect us from international terrorism would no longer be necessary because the Taliban had been defeated in Afghanistan? I simply do not accept the argument that this is a question of fighting either in Afghanistan or on the streets of Britain. There is so much concern among the public, as I have said, not only because of the casualties but because of the refusal of many people to understand why we should continue to stay in Afghanistan for such a long time.
	As far as al-Qaeda is concerned, as others have said, if Afghanistan is closed to that organisation-the international terrorist network-will it close down? Are there not many other places around the globe, as we now know, where it can and does operate? It is very important to make a distinction between the Taliban, however deplorable their position and their rule, and the international terrorist network. They are not one and the same, and we should not confuse the two.
	Neither should we forget that the Taliban have numerous enemies inside Afghanistan. It is not simply a matter of the Taliban and NATO forces. When the Taliban were in power, they had many internal enemies, including rival warlords of various kinds. May I also say that those warlords do not seem to have a particularly distinguished record when it comes to human rights?
	There is the danger that the Taliban will be seen in Afghanistan-a very poor country where many millions of people are desperate to secure a living-as having the legitimacy of fighting off the foreign intervention. They might be seen as the force fighting the infidels. It is interesting to note that the former high commissioner to Pakistan, Sir Nicholas Barrington, wrote to  The Times that opinion formers in Pakistan, who are obviously very much opposed to the Taliban-even more so considering what the Taliban are doing in that country-are very critical of NATO action in Afghanistan. They believe that it is giving ammunition and legitimacy, however wrongly, to the Taliban as the patriotic force fighting the foreign intervention and invasion. We should not forget for one moment the loss of civilian lives in Afghanistan gives ammunition to the Taliban, which they use. These people have been killed by the NATO action, which gives much political capital to the Taliban.
	I am not in favour of immediate withdrawal. To those who challenge us today, saying, "Do you want to leave immediately?" I want to say that that is not my position. I do not believe that it would be the right approach. We recognise that we are one of the forces and one of the partners in NATO. Simply pulling out immediately or in the next few months would not, in my view, be wise. However, it is necessary to be clear in our minds that our intervention and presence in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended. That is why I believe that it is right to debate the issue. I am against extra troops going in-when the Prime Minister made that announcement, I made it clear that I am opposed to that and that if there were a vote on the issue of whether more troops should be sent, I would vote against such a move.
	Let me conclude on this note. It is right, of course, for us to debate the issue. No doubt there will be many more debates. However, it is also important that in the near future-perhaps before this Parliament comes to a close-there should be a vote. I do not know at this stage what sort of motion or amendment that vote should be on, but I believe that it is necessary that we should not simply carry on on the basis of what we agreed to eight years ago. We should take a vote on how long we should be in Afghanistan and the House of Commons should make a decision once again, one way or the other. We should not simply continue as we are at the moment, with mounting casualties and public anxiety. Not only the public but many of us in the House of Commons are beginning to question whether what we are doing in Afghanistan serves any useful purpose in fighting international terrorism.

Malcolm Moss: It is normally a pleasure to follow in the footsteps of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who is my Foreign Affairs Committee colleague. Her remarks at the end slightly tarnished a rather good speech.
	Many hon. Members who have spoken tonight have quite rightly used Afghanistan as the subject of their main comments, and the number of contributions underlines the fact that a full debate on Afghanistan in the House is long overdue. For my part, I should like to restrict my comments to the current situation in the middle east.
	Recent developments have shown the fragility of the middle east peace process, and negotiations have indeed stalled in recent months, although achieving a lasting peace in the middle east has become no less urgent. It is paramount that the peace process gets back on track. It seems to be derailing on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, and both are now threatening to take unilateral action to achieve their individual ends.
	Only last week, it was revealed that some in the Palestinian leadership were allegedly planning to resurrect an idea, dating back to 1988, of an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 boundaries through a resolution in the UN Security Council. That immediately led to retaliation on the part of some Israeli Ministers who said that the annexation of parts of the west bank would follow any such action by the Palestinians.
	I am sure that hon. Members would agree that the spiralling animosity and belligerence on that issue cannot be allowed to deteriorate still further. A lasting peace can be achieved only through dialogue, co-operation and mutual concessions. While the blame game is no doubt very fashionable, we should not allow the responsibility for the current impasse to be laid at any particular door.
	Given the Israeli response in Gaza and the election of a right-wing Government in that country, there seems to be a growing tendency to blame the stalling on Israeli intransigence, but repeated statements even now from its Government and Prime Minister Netanyahu are indeed to work towards a final settlement. In the context of that position, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the progress that has been made, which we, as members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, saw on the west bank.
	As the Committee noted in our report on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority Government, under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad-who, I have to say, greatly impressed the Committee on the occasion that we met him-has shown improved capacity to deliver increased security and manage the Authority's economy and public finances. Those of us on the Committee who toured the west bank did indeed see a very significant improvement in the security presence on the streets of cities such as Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. We saw in those places a very enlarged Palestinian security force.
	At the same time, we must not overlook Israel's commitment to securing a viable Palestinian neighbour. In lieu of political talks, Israel's bottom-up approach to peace has been reasonably successful and resulted in some significant economic and security improvements in the west bank. For example, the number of manned roadblocks in the west bank has been reduced from 35 to 10 in the last few months, improving the freedom of movement and reducing travel time for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. They can now travel throughout most of the northern west bank without encountering security checks. Such positive measures have earned recognition by the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Quartet also recently took note of Israel's positive actions.
	Israel has also facilitated the transfer of a substantial quantity of arms to the Palestinian Authority, including 900 rifles, 1 million bullets and logistical equipment, including surveillance and communication gear.
	As for economic improvements, the strengthened security in the west bank and the virtual disappearance of suicide bombings has resulted in a boom in the Palestinian tourism industry. For instance, the city of Bethlehem welcomed 1 million tourists last year, an increase of nearly 100 per cent. on the previous year. That boom in tourism has generated an estimated 6,000 new jobs in Bethlehem alone. Among noted improvements cited by the International Monetary Fund and other financial observers over the last 12 months are an 18 per cent. increase in the local stock exchange and an 82 per cent. rise in trade with Israel. Improved security and greater access has therefore led to a doubling of the foreign investment in west bank infrastructure, creating jobs and improving living conditions.
	It is important that we recognise the very positive steps taken by Israel. The security and economic improvements in the west bank are testament to the commitment by Israel, albeit at the moment on a rather modest scale, to creating a viable and prosperous Palestinian state.
	However, a recent and potentially very serious development was the announcement by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, on 5 November that, after five years in power, he does not intend to seek re-election in January's poll. Whether Abbas will really stand down is uncertain. He has threatened to do so several times before. Most likely, this is just a protest against the recent apparent U-turn by the US over Israeli settlements. Even after President Obama's stated intention on taking office to give priority to negotiating an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, followed up by his long-awaited speech in Cairo seven months ago, peace today looks further away than ever.
	The impression is that Prime Minister Netanyahu outsmarted the President on his recent visit to Washington and managed to water down Obama's previous pre-condition for talks of a freeze in settlement expansion. Now, although Secretary of State Clinton speaks of the Israeli offer of restrictions in new settlement building as "unprecedented", the Israelis are still going ahead with the construction of 900 new homes at Gilo in East Jerusalem. It would be interesting to know where the Government stand on that recent development. Are they still adamant about a freeze on settlement construction, or do they also consider the offer as "unprecedented" and the basis to reopen talks?
	President Abbas is already facing unpopularity and criticism at home for what sceptics call his acquiescence to the US without getting anything in return. The Palestinians are looking increasingly divided and leaderless; something that will only be exacerbated should Abbas make good on his threat to stand down. Hamas is, of course, expected to benefit from the fallout. What assessment have the Government made of the possible effect of a change of Palestinian leadership on the west bank? Are the Government concerned that the west bank may turn into another Gaza strip, where the Hamas takeover has turned the area into one controlled by terror and oppression?
	Recent polls highlight the increasing unpopularity of President Abbas. In a poll released recently, Abbas would run neck and neck with the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, if presidential elections were held now. According to the poll, Abbas would receive 16.8 per cent. of the vote, compared with 16 per cent. for Haniya. The drop in Abbas's popularity did not, however, carry over into his Fatah party, which would still receive 40 per cent of the vote in elections, compared with 18.7 per cent. for Hamas. Some 23.5 per cent. of the respondents said that they do not intend to vote in the election in any event. Although people would not necessarily switch to Hamas, the poll shows that many are frustrated with the stalling peace negotiations.
	Regardless of whether Abbas will stand down, Hamas has already declared that it will not take part in the elections scheduled for 25 January, and because Hamas is in control of Gaza, Fatah would be able to campaign only in the west bank. We now have Palestinian election officials advising that because they are not welcome in Gaza, they cannot hold the election in January at all. In the past few days that view has been accepted by President Abbas. Perversely, it might enable him to remain in power despite what he said about standing down as he would retain power in the guise of the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
	What assessment have the Government made of the proposed postponement of a January poll? Holding a free and fair election could be the key to making progress in the peace process, if a united Palestinian Authority were the outcome. On the other hand, a strong Hamas mandate on the west bank could set the peace talks back a considerable time. It is apparent that the lack of a clear and consistent policy from the west has played a part in the recent fallout and Abbas's announcement that he will stand down. It is therefore crucial that the US President now presents a clear policy for how to move towards a lasting peace settlement.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: Yes, I do, and I found the excuse for that situation-that the wording of the resolution was partial-to be deeply unsatisfactory and unmoving. The truth is that the debate was about Goldstone and everyone knew that-Goldstone being one of the most respected and distinguished South African judges, with an extremely long pedigree of dealing with matters of civil liberties within his own country and outside it.
	The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) is no longer in his seat, and I was sorry that he would not take my intervention because I wanted to tell him how much I was going to disagree with him. However, with due deference to him, I must say that to speak for 12 minutes without once mentioning the Goldstone report-the 575 pages of the Goldstone report, which is now the central issue in respect of that region-showed in one's view of the middle east a selectivity that I find difficult to comprehend.
	I turn now to factual matters. There is a plethora-a litany-of them, but I simply choose 10, all firmly grounded in the sources to which I have referred, and all plain and unassailable facts. On the west bank, there are now 285,000 illegal settlers. There are 200,000 in East Jerusalem, and that does not account for the 200,000 illegal settlers who are not in formal settlements. There are 75,000 housing units planned on the west bank-illegally-as we speak. That is not a resettlement of people, or a diaspora of Britons in the Dordogne; it is the illegal colonisation of another's land. That is the first matter I wanted to mention.
	Secondly, some 60 per cent. of the west bank is controlled by Israel, much of which is in the so-called area C, which is completely controlled-it is a military zone-along the Jordan river. Some 9.3 per cent. of the land in the west bank is now settled, and there are now 120 unofficial outposts, in which 200,000 people live. Some 400 km of the projected 723 km barrier between these two so-called countries has been completed, and 12 per cent. of the west bank is encompassed illegally within it. Very nearly half a million Palestinians are in the barrier's path and are encompassed or separated from their land as a result. There are 60-not 30, but 60-permanent checkpoints on the west bank. There has been some alleviation, in that they are not always manned now. However, as a riposte to that, there are now 65 flying checkpoints that can be put into effect anywhere. Palestinians are subjected to the added indignity of not knowing where they are going to be stopped at any given time.
	Thirdly, in East Jerusalem, 420 Palestinian houses have been demolished since 2004.
	Then we come to the statistics of deprivation. Infant mortality in Israel is 4.2 per 1,000, while on the west bank it is 15.9 per 1,000; in Gaza, it is 18.35 per 1,000. The per capita GDP of Israel is $28,000, while in neighbouring Palestine, it is $2,900. Unemployment in Israel is 6.1 per cent., while on the west bank it is 16 per cent. In Gaza it is 41 per cent.; that accounts for the fact that 70 per cent. of people in Gaza live below the US poverty level and 79 per cent. are in deep poverty.
	Some 150,000 Palestinians have no running water and 80 per cent. of the water they have is below World Health Organisation standards. That is because the treatment plants were destroyed, almost certainly deliberately, during the invasion of Gaza. As a result of the destruction of the sewage plants, 7 million litres of untreated sewage is poured every day into the sea off Gaza. Furthermore, the width of that sea is now constricted to 3 km, rather than the 20 km agreed at Oslo.
	I have not even got to Goldstone. The Goldstone report is an enormous indictment of individual acts of cruelty and acts that are undoubtedly crimes against humanity and war crimes. There was deliberate killing of civilians; there were 1,440 deaths in Gaza during the invasion in December last year. Some 431 of those who died were children and 114 were women. White phosphorous is an unassailable fact recorded by the United Nations, which knows that it was used against its own installations; 57 were hit during the invasion of Gaza. The only flour mill operating in Gaza was destroyed on 9 January in an absolutely deliberate and premeditated attack. Chicken farms, on which the people of Gaza overwhelmingly rely for their protein, were destroyed. Some 100,000 birds were destroyed; 60 per cent. of the agricultural land was rendered useless. Some 17 per cent. of the orchards were destroyed.
	That is the cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Goldstone is unequivocal in his conclusion that there were serious and repeated breaches of the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 and its first protocol. This is not just another piece of foreign policy, but the crucible of injustice. Without a remedy for that injustice, we will never create international peace or a suitable antidote to international terrorism.
	There is no doubt that in giving vent to this anger, people such as me will be accused of partiality-but Israel is a state, and a prosperous one. It is supported by the most prosperous state and some of the most prosperous institutions in the world. If Israel craves the priceless advantage of international statehood among democratic nations, it must be treated as a state and behave like a state. The Palestinians have no such state; they are denied one. If we deny people a state, our complaint is hollow that their actions do not live up to the status they have been denied.
	As a Member of Parliament and a lawyer, I simply say this: the offences committed, particularly in Gaza, are international offences against the fourth Geneva convention and its protocol. In this country we are signatories to the convention and under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 and the Geneva Conventions (Amendment) Act 1995 we have not only a right but a duty to track down, investigate and prosecute those in breach of the convention. We have a duty to do that here. I say now, in so far as one has any voice at all, that those responsible for those acts in Israel and Palestine can no longer travel safely, because internationally, in all the countries that have signed the convention, they are liable to the prosecution that they deserve.

Patrick Mercer: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews); as usual, he has made his points with great clarity and what he has said has been of great interest.
	I am afraid that I am going to return to the issue of Afghanistan. That will come as no surprise to the Secretary of State for Defence or anyone on these Benches. The focus of my concern is a speech that I heard on Remembrance day in my constituency. It was made by a member of the Royal British Legion, an elderly gentleman who had fought in the second world war. He was wearing the Africa Star and the Italy Star. He spoke with great pride about the amount of money that the Royal British Legion had raised in the previous few weeks, but went on to say how bitterly opposed he was to the war in Afghanistan. He did not understand the cause behind it or the reason for our troops dying there. I spoke to him afterwards. I said that he had fought tyranny-he had the medals to prove it-and that he had been content to stand against a dictator and risk his life. He said, "Yes, but that was a just war. It was a proper, real war. This is a waste of life." I challenged him and asked him to explain. He said that he had heard no proper reasons why our men and women were dying in Afghanistan.
	That is the point that I make to the Secretary of State for Defence. A refreshing amount of understanding has been displayed tonight and Pakistan has been mentioned by almost everyone who has spoken, with one or two notable exceptions. However, the Government have made a particularly poor job of explaining why our men and women are fighting in Afghanistan. There are some cracking arguments that, if made articulately, properly and frequently, might make my friend from the Royal British Legion change his views.
	First and foremost, my friend, like many in the Chamber, advocates withdrawal. But we are where we are, whether we agree with the intervention in 2001 or the expedition to Helmand. Those things are not the point; we are where we are. If we were to withdraw now, what would be the consequences? First and foremost, the United States would simply carry on with the heavy lifting and continue the fight. We paid a price for our behaviour when the Spanish withdrew from Najaf, Iraq, in 2005. We agreed, although not very obviously or publicly, to plug the so-called "Spanish gap" of 3,000 men, but we never did. We did not honour the agreement. The United States forces had to do it and they finally had to pull the fat out of the fire in Basra.
	We cannot carry on letting down our allies; that would be quite wrong for a number of reasons. First, there is our moral duty. Secondly, it would fracture an alliance. Thirdly, after what I consider to be the Prime Minister's ill thought-through statement that we would adopt a timetable for our withdrawal from Afghanistan-not a series of goals or achievements, or a graduated response, but a timetable-within half an hour al-Qaeda was on the wires with its statement claiming that this was the beginning of the end. It said that the second major partner in the alliance, Britain, had signalled the fact that it would no longer support the US and that, to all intents and purposes, it was defeated. We cannot do that.
	The Government's arguments for the most part-although not tonight, because we have heard some excellent speeches from Labour Members-have been made very badly. For instance, several different reasons have been manifested for why we are in Afghanistan. The most recent is that conventional military operations there are designed to keep the streets of Great Britain clear of terrorism and terrorists. The Secretary of State knows that I am the Chairman of the Counter-Terrorism Sub-Committee, so I know that that is an argument, but I do not believe that it is the prime linchpin of the Government's reasons for our conventional operations in Afghanistan. Of course we must prevent that country and others falling back into a state of disrepair and becoming a failed state where terrorism can prosper, but the attacks on 7/7 and the failed attacks on 21/7 were not led by Afghans or by men trained in Afghanistan. The former were led by Yorkshire men, trained in the Lake district and Pakistan, and the latter by a man of north African origin living in north London who had also been trained in Pakistan and this country. The several dozen arrests carried out after the aircraft plot of August 2006 were all of British nationals, with two exceptions. They had not trained in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan. That surely is the point.
	I fail to understand why the BBC so often presents two different pieces of news, the first about Afghanistan, usually bad news, then-several items down the news-something on Pakistan. But it is the same issue, the same war being fought against the same, albeit slightly different enemies and albeit on two different fronts. Would my constituent who fought in the second world war distinguish Anzio and Normandy? Of course he would not-it was the same war against a common enemy on different fronts. The Government must start to make the argument much more coherently that the reason that our troops are in Afghanistan is not just to support the Government of that country or just to bring it back to some form of rationality, but to carry on, on a second front, the war that threatens to engulf the whole region, from the borders of Russia to the borders of Iran. We know that Russia is nuclear-tipped and we believe Iran to be also. Pakistan also has a nuclear arsenal that, should it fall into the hands of our enemies, however likely or unlikely that is, would-as even the meanest intelligence must comprehend-threaten to increase the sad, but relatively modest number of injured and dead from terrorism in this country. Plunging that region into nuclear-tipped chaos would create a problem with which we could not live.

David Anderson: Earlier tonight we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) about the situation in Iraq. She made the point that, for the first time in many years, the word "Iraq" was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. However, the Queen did say that her Government want to work for peace in the middle east, and it is impossible to have any real peace there without involving Iraq. In recent discussions that I had as chair of the Labour Friends of Iraq with the Islamic Dawa party, it said that it believes that Iraq can be a beacon for democracy, freedom and moderation in the middle east instead of suffering the tyrannies of poverty, backwardness and extremism in what is still one of the most prosperous parts of the world. The first part of my speech will ask what our Government intend to do to try to continue to improve the situation in Iraq, now that we no longer have troops on the ground to any great extent.
	One of the key issues that I want to raise is something that has been a running sore for more than four years-the imposition of restrictions on the freedoms of the trade union movement in Iraq. In August 2005, the interim Iraqi Government imposed restrictions on the trade union movement in Iraq, seized its assets and reintroduced rules that said that working in the public sector, which is a huge part of the Iraqi economy, is not compatible with trade union membership. If Iraq wants to pretend to be a democracy and behave like a democracy, it has to accept that free, democratic and independent trade unions must be allowed to exist, something that trade unions in this country, our Government and the International Labour Organisation have all supported. We need to emphasise that, so I hope that the Government take that point on board.
	We also heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley about the upcoming elections. They are due in January, but there are doubts about whether they will go ahead. They should go ahead, and one of the key things that we could is to sit down with the Iraqi Government and the various parties and people across Iraq and say, "What can we do to help you ensure that these elections go ahead?"
	We have a strong and close relationship with the Kurds in Iraq. They are clear that we saved them from effectively being wiped off the face of the earth. I am proud to be the secretary of the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq. The Kurds fear that the Government in Iraq are retreating into a central, rather than a federal state. The Kurdistan region of Iraq is struggling to get its people to see that their future lies in a federal Iraq. If the Government in Iraq do not realise that and do not work with the Kurds, they could well experience even more problems than they have recently.
	Last week a friend of mine, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the High Representative to the United Kingdom from the Kurdistan Government in Iraq, wrote a passionate article in my regional newspaper, the Newcastle  Journal. She rightly paid tribute to the fallen British soldiers and expressed her
	"appreciation for the sacrifices made in the liberation of our country".
	"Liberation" was the term that she used. It is also the term that I have heard time and again on my visits to Iraq. The people I have spoken to see what happened in 2003 as a liberation. For those of us who opposed the intervention in Iraq, that is quite a hard thing to have to accept. However, it is strange that we never hear much in this country about what the people on the ground believe. Lots of us have opinions, and lots of people outside this place have them too; but the truth is that the people of Kurdistan and the people in Iraq see what we did as an act of liberation.
	Bayan knows what she is talking about. Both her father, who was the deputy Prime Minister of Kurdistan, and her brother were among those killed by suicide bombers in the Kurdish capital Irbil in February 2004. I have had the privilege of visiting the monument to their death, which carries a profound epitaph: "Freedom is not free". Very true.
	Bayan also says:
	"it is important to appreciate that Iraq is far better off today than it was under Saddam Hussein and there are many great opportunities for exchange between Britain and Iraq-cultural, educational and commercial."
	I hope that John Chilcot, whose inquiry starts tomorrow, asks people such as Bayan Rahman to give evidence. I hope that he asks Hangar Khan, from the regional trade union movement, and Abdullah Muhsin, who was exiled in the 1980s and became the international representative of the trade union movement, to give evidence too. They will say clearly what Bayan has said to me:
	"Some people seem to have forgotten the brutal reality of his long years of repression. Saddam conducted a campaign of genocide against the Kurds. His forces used chemical weapons to kill men, women and children including 5,000 people who were killed in an attack on the city of Halabja in 1988. They murdered innocent people including thousands of boys and men from the Barzan area who disappeared in 1983,"
	never to be seen again,
	"and whose mass graves are being found today."
	Saddam's forces also
	"razed 4,500 villages to the ground, destroying"
	the agricultural heartland of Iraq. The suffering in other parts of Iraq was the same. The key question that people ask me when I am over there is not "Why did you come here in 2003?" but "Why didn't you come here in 1983? We might have had a very different way of life."
	The other thing that I want to stress to the Government is the opportunities that we are missing in Iraq. There is huge potential for investment in Iraq. The Iraqis want us there. They have a great belief in the craftsmanship of British workpeople and a great loyalty to us for what this Government and this country have done over many years. The Iraqis want us to take up those opportunities, but it is clear that other countries are getting there ahead of us. We really need to step up our game, and we need UK Trade and Investment to do that.
	The Queen's Speech also referred to the need for us to ensure that we increase the 0.7 per cent. contribution from GDP to international development, a point echoed by the Foreign Secretary earlier. Over the past few weeks, we have had a discussion that I thought would never happen in this country, about the so-called Tobin tax or a currency transaction levy, which I have supported for many years.
	I was a delegate to the World Trade Organisation talks in Seattle in 1999, where we thought that we nearly had a deal. Unfortunately, it did not come off. We then went to the next round in Doha, where nothing like that was anywhere near the agenda, mainly as a result of what had happened on 9/11. It was therefore with some surprise that the idea of a currency transaction levy, as called for by early-day motion 1396, which I tabled earlier this year, came out of the discussions at St. Andrews. A currency transaction levy is something that our Prime Minister, our Chancellor and now other people across the world are starting to pursue.
	I never thought that I would say this, but it appears that I was too timid in what I was asking for. My early-day motion, with the support of some campaign groups, suggested a currency transaction levy of 0.005 per cent., which would raise something in the region of £33 billion a year for international development. When we consider the trillions that are moved around the world, £33 billion is not very much, but it would be a huge step in the right direction for international development. I am very glad that that piece of work has taken hold in this country and across the world, because the people of this country are ready to say that it is time that the people who have made millions, billions and trillions off the back of ordinary working people across this country and across the world started playing their part.
	For years, the story has been that if we do anything like that, everybody will run away and put their money somewhere else. That is the same story that people told me for years when I argued for the nationalisation of the banks, but what did we see in the past two years? Not only did they not run away; they ran towards and said, "Please, please, please, get us out of the hole that we've put you in." We have done that. We should now be quite clear and say to people, "We want you now to start playing your part in putting this right," and not just by having a transaction levy devoted to international development, but by looking beyond that. What else can we do with the money that we raise with a relatively small levy? The Austrian Government have suggested putting a 0.5 per cent. levy on financial transactions, which would produce £400 billion a year, which could effectively be spent on good causes. That is something that our Government should explore.
	I will close my remarks in a moment, but I want quickly to touch on three other things that I hope my Government do not back off from. Last week, the Queen said:
	"My Government will introduce a Bill to enable the wider provision of free personal care to those in highest care need."
	However, the words had barely been spoken before the experts came out of the woodwork, including those from my party, to criticise the proposal. As a former care worker and someone who had the great privilege of representing home care workers in this country, my suggestion to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health is: "Ignore the experts. Get on and do this. It's the right thing to do and the people of this country will congratulate you for it."
	Likewise, let us get on with the work to support carbon capture and storage, which is vital for this country's future. We can pretend that we can keep the lights on in this country with wind, water and wave power, but it ain't gonna happen. We need to ensure that we have a good policy, based on exploiting the fossil fuels that we still have in this country.
	Lastly, I want to mention something that was not in the Queen's Speech but ought to have been. It is now time, before the end of this Parliament, to put right the injustice of people who are suffering from pleural plaques and asbestos-related diseases. A Bill went through this House about a month ago, and it is now sitting along the corridor. It should be reintroduced, and we should find a way to put this right. That is morally the right thing for this Government to do.

Christopher Chope: I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) on being an authentic voice of old, red-flag socialism. It was good to hear him speaking out so robustly. Needless to say, I disagree with almost everything he said, but I do agree with his last point. He has been gravely let down by his own Government on the issue of pleural plaques.
	I want to talk about a number of issues, beginning with Afghanistan. I want to follow up on the quote from the Gracious Speech that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) used. It is extraordinary that Afghanistan does not even get a sentence of its own in the speech. The quote is:
	"My Government will work for security, stability and prosperity in Afghanistan and Pakistan and for peace in the Middle East."
	On analysing that sentence, it does not appear that the Government are working for peace in Afghanistan, although they are working for prosperity there.
	My constituents, like those in many other communities, have faced the loss of loved ones in this war. I think that four families in my constituency have been directly affected by the loss of loved ones who have sacrificed everything for the service of their country in Afghanistan. The woolly words in the Gracious Speech do not answer the question that I and many others have been asked during the recent Remembrance day services. People asked us whether their son, their relative or their friend had died in vain. The answer that I gave is no, they did not, but I look to the Government to be more forthcoming in explaining why those young men did not die in vain.
	The woolly language on Afghanistan in the Gracious Speech, which was picked up by the hon. Member for Islington, North, shows that the Government are trying to embrace all opinions, but we are left with no clarity at all. Instead, we have a spin doctor's fudge, using words that can be interpreted by different people in different ways, to ensure that the hon. Gentleman can support them. I am dissatisfied by the Government's lack of clarity on the objectives. They have not yet succeeded in persuading the people of this country that our young friends and family members are not dying in vain.
	I have been in the Chamber for some four and a half hours today, listening to what has been a good quality debate. A persistent theme throughout has been the collective political impotence that our country, our Government and our constituents are experiencing in the face of global anarchy and terrorism and the abuse of human rights. That sense of impotence is apparent in many of the actions of NATO, the EU and the United Nations. Looking at different parts of the world, one can see that their best efforts are not delivering much of a return.
	We have heard about what is happening in Zimbabwe, Iran, the Balkans, the middle east and Somalia-not to mention Afghanistan. The Foreign Secretary took it upon himself to say that it was important to have as the EU spokesman on big international issues someone who could stop the traffic in Beijing. I fear, however, that the Foreign Office and the Government now lack any clout in international affairs, although they still talk as though they were running the show.
	Extending that theme, I believe that our constituents feel a similar sense of impotence, not just about what is happening abroad but about what is happening in the United Kingdom. For example, the population of the UK is rapidly accelerating to reach 70 million within the next 20 years. It is difficult to find any constituents who think that that is a good idea, but is there any mention of that in the Gracious Speech? Do we ever have a proper, constructive debate about it? No, we do not. People feel that they are being left in the dark, unable to do anything about it.
	What about the vast numbers of immigrants who have come to this country in the past 10 or 12 years, most recently estimated by the Oxford economics report to be in the order of 3 million? According to the report's estimates, that would lead to a total of 6.6 million immigrants in this country, with another million expected in the next five years. Again, has there been any public debate about that? My constituents do not feel that there has. Moreover, the figures that I have just cited do not include those figures for illegal immigrants.
	Only last weekend, at my Saturday surgery, I had a couple of relevant cases. One involved a person from Iran. I will not identify him by name, but he was picked up in this country in April 2000. He applied for asylum, but his application was turned down. In January 2002, he appealed. His appeal was dismissed in December 2002. He is still here, although there is a restriction on his being able to work and he is not allowed to depend on public funds. He is, however, alive and well and living in Christchurch. He is now one of the legacy cases, which means that he might finally be dealt with by 2011.
	In the meantime, this man is in a complete state of limbo. People will ask why he still reports monthly to the local police station, and why his case has not been dealt with if his appeal was turned down as long ago as 2002. Why is he still in this country, the best part of 10 years after he was first discovered to be here? I do not know the answers to those questions, but I do know that the people of this country feel that this is not right. They feel that someone who has been refused asylum should either be returned to the country from which they came, or, if that is not possible, be allowed to participate in the life of this country. They cannot be expected not to be allowed to earn anything and just to drift along.
	On the same day, two people from the People's Republic of China came to my surgery. They had been in this country since 2004, and they, too, were in this limbo of not knowing what is going to happen to them. Again, they are not allowed to work or to have recourse to public funds, but they have now produced a couple of children, so I do not know how they are managing to support them. If there are this number of people in Christchurch who have been refused permission to stay in this country after having gone through due process but are still here, one can only imagine how many there must be in other parts of the country.
	The biggest sense of frustration and impotence at the moment, however, is that felt by people in the face of what has been happening in the European Union in the past week or so. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) said that she thought what had happened in recent weeks or days was not particularly satisfactory, but I would go so far as to say that it has been a grotesque spectacle of wheeling and dealing and backroom deals, ending up in lowest common denominator appointments, which cannot be in anybody's best interests.
	Over the last two Sessions, I have consistently sought to bring before the House a Bill to evaluate the costs and benefits of our continuing membership of the European Union-a Bill that is supported by my Front Benchers and by the Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, but not, interestingly, by the Government. Bearing in mind the fact that my own party accepts that political integration has gone too far and that the costs of our membership-with a gross contribution exceeding £14.2 billion-are far too high, I hope that the Government will introduce proposals to enable us to have a rational discussion and evaluation of the political and economic costs of continuing membership of the European Union, balancing against that what the benefits might be.
	If we did that, we would be prepared at the beginning of the next Parliament to debate this issue with the people-leading, I hope, to a proper referendum, because the people feel impotent, having been promised a referendum that has never been delivered. Nobody under the age of 52 has ever had the chance to express their views in a specific ballot on whether they believe our relationship with the EU is satisfactory or not, and whether they wish to have a changed relationship.
	All those sources of frustration give rise to a feeling among our constituents that they are impotent and powerless, with an enormous democratic deficit. Having a lame duck Government continuing to try to hang on to power instead of calling a general election to have a fresh start in this economic crisis simply adds fuel to the fire. I hope that the Government will in fact abandon their proposals in the Queen's Speech and call an immediate general election so that we can clear the air and people can have their say.

Paul Flynn: "I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it... I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation... I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them".
	Those words, written by Siegfried Sassoon in 1917 as a serving soldier, were read out in this House, but they precisely describe the current situation in Afghanistan. We went in with a number of objectives, the main one being to ensure that Osama bin Laden had no safe haven from which to plot terrorism in the west. He has a safe haven, but it is in another country.
	We went into Afghanistan, as we heard from the Government earlier, partly because 90 per cent. of our drugs were being produced there. It was not the main reason for the war, but it was one of the reasons why going into that country in 2001 was a popular decision. Now, after the deaths of 235 soldiers and enormous expenditure by taxpayers in this country to reduce drug growth, we can see that what we have done has had no influence whatever on the production of heroin. Market forces have had an influence, as there have been three record years for the production of heroin, as a result of which the price of heroin on the streets of Britain is the cheapest it has ever been. This has been an utter failure.
	We heard from the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who has a military background, that he does not believe a word of the current fiction that fighting in Afghanistan reduces the threat of terrorism on our streets. He is, of course, absolutely right. The people who committed the act of terrorism here on 7/7, which killed 52 people, spoke with Yorkshire accents. They were trained in Pakistan. A quarter of the terrorist acts in Britain were planned in this country; the other three quarters were planned in Pakistan. Yet because we have lost our way, the reasons for which we initially sent in our soldiers have now disappeared. The politicians are seeking to find an exit that can be spun into a victory. That is the position we are in now. No one in America, Canada or the Netherlands with any knowledge of the situation believes anything but that the war is lost, and lost hopelessly. We must find a way out.
	We now put ourselves in a position where we believe any fantasy: it is always easier to go on repeating an old lie than to reveal a new truth. Do we seriously believe that the current President of Afghanistan is the one who will lead his country out of corruption? He has rigged an election; his brother is one of the best known and richest drug dealers in the country; on human rights, he has said that it was right to release from prison, on the grounds that boys will be boys, young men who gang-raped a 13-year-old girl; he refused for 18 months to release from prison someone who received a 20-year sentence for accessing a document on women's human rights from the internet; and he made it legal for Afghan men to commit marital rape.
	It was telling that this afternoon the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) said that our best practical way forward was to use corruption ourselves, as we did in Iraq: to bribe soldiers to come to our side. We often miss the point that the soldiers in the Afghan army, the ones in the police, the ones in the Taliban and the ones fighting for the warlords, are mercenaries with tribal loyalties. There is not a good group and a bad group. Are our bribes of money to get people to fight for us somehow ethical? It is no wonder that their loyalties are shallow.
	Nor is it surprising that we cannot count on the Afghan police, one of whom turned on our soldiers in an act of murder. They have no reason to be loyal. I asked the Foreign Secretary today whether he thought that Karzai would arrest his brother, Wali. If he does not, is he serious about corruption? Will he make sure that the Afghan police are paid? That is fairly important, because at the moment they are not paid-they buy their jobs. The position of chief constable in one area costs up to £100,000, which the holder must get back by taking his cut of the bribes and extortion of his junior officers who rob the people they are meant to serve.
	We must pay tribute to the troops for their bravery and success in Operation Panther's Claw. However, there was an ugly side to it. In the village of Penkala, the elders came to see our soldiers and said, "Whatever you do, make sure that the Afghan police do not come back. We know that they rob us and they are thieves, but last time they practised 'bacha bazi', which is the organised rape of pre-pubescent boys, who were kept in compounds in the village." That is not an isolated event. Is that the way to win hearts and minds-through our bombs, bullets and "bacha bazi"?
	We heard the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) on what would happen if we were to pull out now, but no one is suggesting that we do so in a disorderly way. There is great danger, however, unless we do a deal with the patchwork of interests in Afghanistan. That deal must take in the Northern Alliance warlords, who are pretty unpleasant people. One of them was responsible for suffocating 200 prisoners, but he is important to Karzai who made sure that he was back for the election because he needed his votes and support. In our eyes, however, he is guilty of war atrocities.
	In the case of the Taliban, we have developed the mindset that they are so wicked and terrible that we cannot possibly let them in. If 9/11 had not taken place, however, we would have been quite happy with the Taliban running the country as an independent state for the past eight years. The myth that has been perpetrated conflates the Taliban with al-Qaeda-as the hon. Member for Newark did in his very interesting speech-and Afghanistan with Pakistan. We have invented a new country called "the region" or "the Afghanistan-Pakistan border", although we know that the areas are very different and have very different interests.
	If there is any group with a strong interest in ensuring that al-Qaeda never returns to Afghanistan, it is the Taliban. It was because of al-Qaeda that they lost their position as rulers of the country. When I last spoke about this subject in the House, I quoted an international think-tank which had said that 72 per cent. of Afghanistan was controlled by the Taliban last year and 80 per cent. this year. The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), disagreed. Although I have written to him, I have yet to be told what the official figure is. However, it is a fantasy to believe that we are in control, and that if we left, everything would go to hell-would go to the Taliban.
	Britain has 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan: 2,000 are fighting soldiers on the front line, and they are in one of 34 provinces. Last year we celebrated with great satisfaction the taking of a turbine to the Kajaki dam. Three thousand of our soldiers and 1,000 others were required to ensure that the turbine reached the dam, but it has yet to produce enough electricity to light a bicycle lamp. In fact, we have one fewer turbine there, because another has not been repaired on site. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that there have been great successes. There have certainly been successes, but they are tiny. British involvement is limited to perhaps 2 or 3 per cent. of the land mass of the country.
	We have seen what our brave allies-those from the Netherlands and Canada who have paid the price in blood and treasure-have done. Let me issue this plea: for goodness' sake stop believing the myths, particularly the new myths about the nuclear threat. The reason we are creating these new pieces of propaganda is that the Government and Opposition are rattled by the fact that a quarter of the population of the country believe, sadly, that our soldiers are dying in vain. That is a cruel thing to say from the viewpoint of the relatives of those soldiers, but it does not in any way detract from their bravery, which is as impressive as that of any soldiers who have ever fought on our behalf.
	There is another example that defies our myths. We hear that the Americans are paying $1,500 for each truck with which they move goods-ordinary goods, not just weapons but furniture and toiletries-from Kabul to Kandahar, and that in each case the money ends up in the hands of the Taliban. According to an Afghan proverb, when the sun comes up it is like the truth: it is hard to hide it. The sad thing is that the truth is slow to dawn in this Parliament.

Nicholas Winterton: I am delighted to be called to speak in what has been an excellent debate, albeit at the tail end. There have been some outstanding speeches; the exchange between my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and the right hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), a former Labour Minister, highlights the sort of genuine debate that can, from time to time, take place in this Chamber.
	People in the House would expect me to seek to raise the matter of Zimbabwe, and I shall not disappoint them; I intend to raise that very issue. Today, I got an e-mail from friends in Zimbabwe entitled "What will Santa bring Zimbabwe?" I fear that it will not be a very happy or prosperous Christmas there. From all the information that I receive from Zimbabwe, it seems that a sense of uncertainty and foreboding is spreading, after a period of some progress.
	That progress, of course, began with the formation of the unity Government, when the Movement for Democratic Change and Morgan Tsvangirai joined ZANU-PF in government, and Morgan Tsvangirai bravely became the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. Whatever the truth of the situation in Zimbabwe, the community fears a return to the situation that prevailed in 2008. Businessmen fear that they will wake up one morning and find their hard currency accounts converted to a new local currency that is basically worthless, at a rate set by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. They fear the imposition of restrictions on prices, and a return to the harsh regime of the recent past.
	Of course, the progress took place because of the entry of the MDC into government, and because the Finance Minister, Mr. Tendai Biti, worked remarkably hard; he is an outstandingly able man, and he has started to put the economy of Zimbabwe back on the rails. However, because of what is happening, the slow recovery in the banking system has evaporated. A run on the banks has put severe strain on cash flows, and that is not helped by the information that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been misappropriating the reserves of the commercial banks. People are suddenly reverting to a strictly cash system.
	Furthermore, the revelation that the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment has clandestinely drafted new regulations that would expropriate, without compensation, 51 per cent. of the shareholdings of all foreign firms with a capital value of more than $500,000 has simply halted foreign development investment activity. Firms that have already invested in Zimbabwe have frozen their operations in that country, and those thinking about new investments have stopped all preparation and plans. That is the situation in Zimbabwe.
	I quote briefly from an excellent editorial in  The Times entitled "Mugabe's Lies". It says that Mr. Tsvangirai should be told that there will be no large-scale western help for his long-suffering people unless his power-sharing Government with the MDC-that is important to emphasise-halt police repression, curb the violence of Mr. Mugabe's "veterans", and ends the judicial hounding of Opposition leaders such as Roy Bennett, who is currently being tried for treason on utterly trumped-up charges. Mr. Tsvangirai, sadly, may be unable to deliver that message to a rather embattled President Mugabe, in which case, I believe, it is time that Mr. Tsvangirai and the MDC left the Government and enabled Mr. Mugabe to govern on his own.
	However, there is a figure not very far away from Zimbabwe in South Africa. I refer, of course, to President Jacob Zuma, who has a far easier task in influencing Mr. Mugabe. With an estimated 3 million Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa, he has, as the leader of his country, a pressing need to end the violence and repression north of his border. He promised while campaigning for the presidency to take a much tougher line than former President Mbeki. It is now time-this is the advice that I hope he may take-to unplug the power, turn off the fuel lines and force a change in Harare. That is the only way in which change will be brought about.
	Earlier in the debate I intervened on my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary, who made the point that Mr. Mugabe would listen to other nations in southern Africa, particularly the nations that comprise SADC-the Southern African Development Community. I pointed out to my right hon. Friend that Zimbabwe has ignored a decision taken by the SADC tribunal in Windhoek, Namibia which ruled in support of a family whose property rights were being taken apart by the "veterans" of ZANU-PF and Mr. Mugabe. Sadly, we have an example of Mr. Mugabe being prepared to cock a snook at other countries which reach an impartial decision relating to what is happening in his country.
	On a different subject, I am delighted that the Secretary of State for Defence is present. I shall not raise the matter of armoured personnel carriers. I leave that to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), who has made a great study of it and often clashes with the right hon. Gentleman. I want to raise the matter of the Nimrod aircraft. I am very interested that the RAF should get the best possible replacement for the Nimrod R1 and in retaining the standard capability that has been built up by that aircraft over more than 50 years. The industrial, employment and operational considerations coincide, and all of them are in favour of the adoption of the BAE Systems proposed Nimrod MRA4-based solution.
	I hope this issue is taken seriously by the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleague: I speak here on behalf of the trade unions at BAE Systems at Woodford, both shop floor trade unions and the staff trade unions, which have displayed such outstanding loyalty and co-operation with BAE Systems over many years. Their concerns should be recognised and properly considered by the Government. I hope that even at this stage the Government may consider not proceeding with the purchase of the Rivet Joint aircraft because it is possible for the BAE Systems proposal to be taken forward.
	Why can we not extend the life of the Nimrod R1, which has been doing such wonderful work? Unfortunately, however, I am told by US sources that the selection of individual airframes for the RAF Rivet Joint conversion has already taken place, and that the programme seems to be moving ahead. Indeed, US contacts-I refer to the US air force and the industry-find it unbelievable when they are told that the RC-135 solution has not yet been formally selected, as far as I know, and is not under contract, such is the impetus that they can see to the end of their programme.
	The electronic warfare and avionics detachment at RAF Waddington, the unit with design authority for the R1 aircraft's mission system and responsibility for its installation, modification, replacement and calibration, is being run down to a timetable that is commensurate with an R1 out-of-service date of 2011. I heard only very recently that the first R1 has already been withdrawn from service and will end up in a museum. Will the Secretary of State confirm that a second R1 is also scheduled to be taken out of service and, perhaps, sold to the RAF museum at Duxford? That may not be accurate, so I should appreciate an honest answer to the question about whether the R1 is being withdrawn, because there is no reason why its out-of-service date could not be deferred to 2015. I could ask a number of questions. There is a cost to taking the R1s out of service, but how much will that be? Rolls-Royce has a penalty clause in its contract. How much will that be? How much would it cost to extend the life of the R1 to 2015?
	There is no reason why the R1s cannot continue in service until 2015, not least because they are safe. They have not been exposed to the same adverse conditions as the MR2s and, as the Secretary of State knows, they have just undergone a very big maintenance programme. The Rivet Joint, which is the alternative, cannot meet the in-service date either, and it has been estimated that each aircraft would require 18 months to convert, hence a programme of some four and a half years. At this late stage, cannot the Secretary of State support the Prime Minister, who has talked with great sincerity-and I believe him-about manufacturing? Manufacturing provides jobs, so cannot the Secretary of State supply British jobs for British aircraft in a British factory: BAE Systems at Woodford, which lies at the edge of my constituency? I believe in that work force, and I believe they deserve the Government's support. Can the Secretary of State give them a reassuring answer when he makes his winding-up speech?

Liam Fox: This has been a very good debate, and I apologise to Members from all parts of the House if the pressure of time means that I am unable to underline some of the particularly good individual contributions that have been made.
	It is no surprise that a great deal of today's debate has focused on Afghanistan. In general, the issues that were focused on fell into four groups: why we are in Afghanistan; the cost of defeat in Afghanistan; what we mean conceptually by winning; and, the need for consistency in messaging. Several Members, including the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary, made the point that we are in Afghanistan for national security reasons. We initially went in to deny al-Qaeda the space from which it launched those attacks on the west in which many thousands of innocent people, including British citizens, died. That was achieved relatively quickly, but we must continue to deny al-Qaeda the space. We also need to stop the contamination and potential destabilisation and, indeed, collapse of Pakistan. In other words, we need to see what is happening in Afghanistan in geopolitical, not social, terms.
	As a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends said, we cannot conflate the military mission with the reconstruction mission. If we try to describe in reconstruction terms the reasoning for undertaking a national security mission, we are likely to confuse the British public further. We also need to be consistent in our messaging. We are either in Afghanistan as a result of a national security imperative or we are not; we cannot change the reasoning week by week. If one week we say that we have to see the mission through, we must not later send the mixed signal that we would not be there if we could possibly avoid it.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) made one of the best speeches that I have heard him give in Opposition. He asked what was different now from the situation when Russia attacked and occupied Afghanistan. He gave a number of examples, including the fact that the Mujaheddin had widespread support that was militarily and politically well beyond the boundaries of Afghanistan. The Taliban do not; they are a small and isolated grouping.
	I should like to add to my right hon. and learned Friend's arguments. We have seen the emergence of China. Someone mentioned earlier that Afghanistan had pretty much nothing going for it. China, however, has made a major investment in the copper deposits there and that offers a genuine opportunity for Afghanistan to make a positive contribution to the global economy. Since the Russian invasion, we have also seen the emergence of a genuinely globalised economy with the opportunities that that brings. Afghanistan now has a democratic Government, who may not be up to the standards that many in the west want, but they are certainly an improvement on what was there before.
	My right hon. and learned Friend also concentrated on what he regarded as the three most important elements of strategy: the training of the Afghan national security forces; the need in the longer term for continuous military support through air support; and the need for political progress while accepting what is possible and in what time scale. My right hon. and learned Friend is fond of quotations. In backing up what he said, I remind him that in 1972, the great Pashtun activist Khan Abdul Wali was asked by a journalist to what he owed his first allegiance. He replied:
	"I have been a Pashtun for six thousand years, a Muslim for thirteen hundred years, and a Pakistani for twenty-five."
	We need to understand the history and complexity of the region in which we are involved.
	We have to add one more element to the strategy: General McChrystal's concept that the centre of the insurgency is population-based, and that we have to have a population-centric result. As the general said, we need to shift our emphasis, not to how many of our enemies we kill, but to how many we shield in safety in the Afghan population. We need to see through that security, which we promised from the outset.
	As has been said in the House before, we have to have a change of mindset. In a counter-insurgency, a defection is better than a surrender, a surrender is better than a capture and a capture is better than a kill. We will need to see such a change if the American response is to be closer to General McChrystal's assessment. I would say to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), if he were still in his place, that I have always found the general's assessment compelling.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) talked about what a disaster it would be if we withdrew precipitately. That message was echoed by other Members. It would be a disaster for decent Afghans trying to achieve a better life, many of whom have been willing to sacrifice their own security to help us in the conflict. We cannot betray them. It could be a disaster for Pakistan and for the broader concept of the western alliance. What cohesion or credibility would we have if we pulled out unilaterally? That message was echoed by the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) in his speech.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said that nowhere was our reputation more important in this context than in our relationship with the United States. After Iraq, including Najaf and Basra, we have to be extremely aware of the reputation of our armed forces. We must give them the support that they need to do the jobs that we have asked them to do.
	Pakistan was touched on by several hon. Members, and it has four problems that we need to understand. First, there is an economic crisis in the country, and the Government are struggling to keep their chin above water. That will go on for some time and will require a huge amount of international aid if we are to give the Government the support that they will need for stability. Secondly, there is an endemic political problem in Pakistan with the structure of its democracy. Sometimes I think that we have a cartographer's view of the world-drawing a border around something makes it a country, and it can be treated in the same way as we would treat neighbouring European states. But Pakistan is not like that. Its political structure is prone to becoming a regional winner-takes-all set-up, and therefore internal political stability is difficult to achieve. Thirdly, Pakistan is militarily designed for state-on-state warfare. Its armed forces are shaped for that and, because of the continuing tensions with India, many Pakistani forces are prepared for deployment in that direction. They therefore do not have the means to deal with the fourth element, which is the anti-insurgency, anti-terror action that we are now demanding of them.
	We need to understand some of the regional complexities. Most of the Pakistani army speaks Punjabi. If they are stuck up in the north-west, they will not even speak the same language as the people whose security they are trying to guarantee. If the international community gave Pakistan more support and perhaps less criticism, it would be able to assist us more than it is sometimes able to do, given some of the rhetoric that comes from some of the countries supposedly helping it. In particular, we should look to countries such as Saudi Arabia to offer greater support to Pakistan, especially its organs of state, than they have done in the past.
	When we have a mission such as that in Afghanistan, for which public support is diminishing-everybody in the House has to accept that that is happening-it is very tempting to come up with a timetable that suggests a way out, once we get to x date. Timetables are both wrong and dangerous. Yes, we need benchmarks to determine our success and to show us that our aims have been achieved, but they should not be marks on a calendar. Timetables risk undermining the confidence of our allies, who wonder if our hearts are really in it-if we have the moral fortitude to see through what we have described as a national security imperative. Introducing a timetable also runs the risk of reinforcing the confidence of our enemies, because it tells them that if they can only outlast us, they will be victorious. That is the greatest danger we face, undermining the morale of our own forces. Tempting though it may be in the short term for politicians, it is wrong for all sorts of reasons.

Liam Fox: It is important that we set out benchmarks by which we will be able to determine success, so that our electorates are able to see if we have achieved them, but that is very different from setting out an artificial time scale and then trying to make events fit it. It is wrong for all those reasons, and we must not be tempted to go down that route simply because it might buy a couple of points in the opinion polls in the short term. It is the wrong approach to a military campaign.
	An interesting point arose earlier in one of those great moments of clarification that we all hope to witness in these debates. The Liberal Democrats told us that the war in Iraq was illegal and the reason that they had supported the war in Afghanistan was because it represented their commitment to multilateralism. On that logic, I assume that if being in Afghanistan is part of their commitment to multilateralism, it would be intellectually inconceivable to have a unilateral withdrawal, whatever the opinion polls said. I now turn to the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats to see that that is a correct understanding of his party's position.  [ Interruption. ] It is important what that silence says. I am not sure how  Hansard will record the importance of that non-response, but all those present in the Chamber can understand exactly what it means.
	We had much discussion about the importance of NATO, which leads on to the speech by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who spoke about the extension into the alliance of the concept of European defence co-operation. I accept that there is a role for the European Union where NATO cannot or will not carry out a particular mission or function. However, that role should be on the basis of additionality and not be a substitution for the commitments already signed up to in NATO membership. In other words, people simply cannot say, "We're not going to do the war fighting in NATO; we're only going to use our contributions for peacekeeping missions of the European Union." Therein lies the danger, because countries cannot have endless caveats and still be part of the NATO alliance. Sometimes we have to fight for peace and sometimes we have to die for it. We certainly have to be willing to pay for it, but if we have the concept of double-hatting or even triple-hatting, or if we have duplicating structures, they are not likely to strengthen NATO as the element of primacy in our defence, but weaken it.
	When it comes to the promotion of Baroness Ashton to her new European role, I would like the Secretary of State to confirm just one thing for us in his speech this evening. Will she take up her role as the head of the European Defence Agency, as set out in the original treaty? We simply cannot accept a supranational role for procurement inside the European Union. Procurement must be a national decision, based on sovereignty, with co-operation with others where we think that co-operation is in our mutual interests, but we should not have it forced upon us. Ultimately, joint procurement must be about procurement that gives us interoperability with those who are most likely to fight on the ground with us. When we look at what is happening, it is clear that that will primarily be the United States. There is a strong case in Europe for looking at our co-operation with the French, for example, but at present it does not go beyond that. Therefore, we could not accept wider co-operation.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) talked about the middle east. He was one of the few people who talked about the positive achievements that can occur on the west bank. He talked about Jenin, where we can see the fruits of economic and political co-operation. There was widespread support in all parts of the House for a two-state solution.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) talked about the western Balkans and the need to maintain the momentum of the Tadic Government towards EU membership, because instability in the Balkans has historically been hugely detrimental to this country's security.
	The hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) talked about Sri Lanka. He knows of my long involvement in Sri Lanka. Twelve years ago I negotiated an early part of the peace negotiations there. Victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is something that we should all celebrate. It is also something that many of us did not think possible. There is no doubt that Sri Lanka is at a crossroads. It has a wonderful opportunity to take a new direction. In short, Sri Lanka has to choose whether it wants to be Burma or Singapore. Sri Lanka can take the correct route at this crossroads only by having a one Sri Lanka policy, by having a reconstruction that is ethically based, not ethnically based, and by recognising that every citizen has to be judged by the value that they bring to the new Sri Lanka, not by any previous measurements of where they come from, nor by race or religion. As members of the European Union, we have to be careful not to lecture too much or give too few incentives in a country that is beginning to move very much in the right direction.
	We talked briefly today about Iran-about the problems that we face, about the nature of the regime, about the human rights abuses occurring there, about Iran's willingness to export terror and instability and about the fact that if Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state, we face a nuclear arms race in that part of the world, which is not something that we want to leave to the next generation.
	Finally, to return to Afghanistan, we need to get the strategy right. We need to dispel some of the anti-war defeatism that exists in parts of our country. I do not believe, as someone said earlier, that our soldiers have died in vain. Sadly, to say that only gives comfort to our enemies. The selfless sacrifice of our forces makes it all the more important that we get our strategy and tactics right. It is our duty to them to be clear why we are there, to be clear about the danger of losing and to understand what we mean by winning.
	This has been a good debate. We have enjoyed the least controversial part of the Gracious Speech, on which there has been a good deal of cross-party consensus, in contrast to some of the other elements of the Queen's Speech which, I am afraid, have seen a flagging Government increasingly resorting to the fantasy world of their bunker. This must be the first time that Her Majesty has been required to read out a living will. The general election cannot come quickly enough.

Bob Ainsworth: We have been in discussions with the American Administration at every level-Prime Minister to President, for example, and I spoke to Secretary Gates on Thursday. I think that General McChrystal's direction of travel is in line with our own thinking and I am confident that when the announcement is made, it will be in that direction. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend is wrong and that we continue to be committed with the appropriate level of forces to a counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan.
	I understand the strength of public feeling when confronted with the reality of the fighting. Progress has come at a heavy human cost. I also understand when there are questions about whether or not the sacrifice is worth it, but we cannot afford to be half-hearted in Afghanistan-and neither can we afford to be so here at home. The Taliban cannot defeat NATO in the field. They will attempt to outlast us; they will hope to sap support at home; but they will succeed only if we lose our resolve. If that happened, the result would be Britain less safe, NATO diminished and the terrorists resurgent.
	I am a little kinder to the Liberal Democrats regarding the comments made here tonight. I would take them as a reaffirmation of their commitment to the operation in Afghanistan and a rowing back from the speech made by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) at the Liberal Democrat conference. I would like us to be able to send a clear message to our troops that we have the entire support of the House and all the parties in it for the operations in Afghanistan.
	Afghanistan is and must be the main effort for defence. Last month, in the defence policy debate, I set out to the House the steps that we have been taking on equipment, personal protection and capability more widely: to target directly the threats of IEDs; to provide commanders on the ground with further tactical flexibility to get the job done; and to provide better protection for our troops. Additional spending on operations in Afghanistan has risen to reflect the situation, from £700 million in 2006 to more than £3 billion this year, on top of the defence budget of more than £35 billion a year.
	I make no apology for making Afghanistan the main effort for defence, not only through drawing on the Treasury reserve but by looking at how the core defence budget can support the effort too. It is right to do that, particularly in the current fiscal climate. The Treasury will continue to fund urgent operational requirements and the net additional costs of operations. However, by taking tough decisions and choices, we will reprioritise the defence budget to fund additional enhancements that will directly support the mission in Afghanistan. We will also work to adjust our defence programme to bring it into balance with future requirements and resources through the current planning round.
	In each of our decisions, the following principles will apply. First, each decision will be tested against its effect on the operational requirements in Afghanistan as the main effort for defence. Secondly, each will be a contribution to bringing the defence programme into balance, both in the short and long term. Thirdly, we will avoid as far as possible significant decisions on capability which should properly be made as part of a strategic defence review.
	Defence will have to maintain credibility in its primary role as the ultimate guarantor of territorial integrity, and engage abroad at differing levels of intensity, preventing and resolving conflicts in order to protect our national security and pursue our national interests. The defence review will be designed to get the posture right for the years ahead.
	Let me respond to some of the points made today. In opening the debate, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) raised the issue of Bulldog, which has been widely reported in the press. Some people who criticised the decision have relatively short memories. We took decisions to upgrade Bulldog in 2006 when, if people wish to recall, we had only just gone into Helmand province, and our troops in Basra were running convoys into and out of an aggressive environment. There was an absolute need for an upgraded armoured vehicle. Bulldog in part met that need, and was well thought of at the time.
	The priority then was saving lives in Iraq. We were of course trying to bring other vehicles, such as Mastiff, into the supply chain as quickly as possible, but the upgrading of Bulldog also made a considerable contribution to meeting the threat faced at the time-not in Afghanistan, for which it was never intended, but to ensure the safety of our troops who faced indirect, rocket-propelled attacks on armoured vehicles in the Basra area of Iraq. It did the job that it was required to do.
	I am afraid that I am running out of time, so I shall write to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks on his points about what the Prime Minister said.
	The Foreign Secretary has set out how the Government's active multilateralism and internationalist outlook have given Britain real influence in the world over the past 12 years. The courage, commitment and professionalism of our armed forces are key components in that success. It is an honour to serve as Secretary of State for Defence. In this Session, I will ensure that Afghanistan is the main effort for defence, that our troops get every support necessary to get the job done, that we seek to balance our books at this difficult financial time, and that we prepare our forces to face the threats of the future. That is the right and responsible action.
	 The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 9(3)).
	 Ordered, That the debate be resumed tomorrow.

Vincent Cable: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a subject that represents a familiar problem for many Members of Parliament. I was prompted to raise it by a significant number of specific constituency cases, but I recognise that it is a big national issue. The consumer organisation Which? estimates that consumers are currently spending some £2 billion a year on dealing with faults after being misled by contractors in various ways, and there are roughly 100,000 outstanding cases-probably more-on the files of trading standards officers.
	It is not just that a large number of households have been caused considerable difficulties by builders whom they have contracted; the problem is very damaging to the wider economy. If there is any single measure that would breathe life into the British economy and create a large amount of employment, it is a big burst of housing maintenance and improvement, but people are often inhibited by worries about quality.
	I want to draw attention to a handful of cases. I have six on my books at the moment from my advice surgeries, and, although they illustrate different aspects of the problem, they all have certain things in common. First, the individuals concerned were careful. They were not duped. They went through a number of tests to establish whether those with whom they were dealing had proper qualifications. They tried to make staged payments. They did all the things that people are advised to do. Secondly, behind many cases in which problems were encountered with cowboy builders was a familiar story. For example, some contractors who go bankrupt subsequently reopen under new names. The so-called phoenix company technique appears to be quite common at that end of the trade. More seriously, many of the established remedies, obtained through the trade body-the Federation of Master Builders-the courts and trading standards officers, proved wholly unsatisfactory.
	I recognise that the Government have in the last decade put quite a lot of effort into trying to put in place a better regime to protect consumers. A decade ago, the cowboy builder working party was dealing with this, and it led eventually to the charter mark called the quality mark, which was established in 2000. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) put a lot of effort into getting that system going. It was well intentioned, but it did not work. More recently, we have had the TrustMark system, but, as I will illustrate from a few examples, that is not working well either.
	Let me cite a few examples, as they will serve to illustrate the general principle. Most of the people who have come to me do not want to be named; in some cases, fear of intimidation is a factor. I will start with Mr. Williamson, however, who is sufficiently indignant to be happy to be identified, by recounting his experiences with one particular company or set of companies, variously known as M. D. Lockyer Builders Ltd or M. D. L. B.
	Lest it be thought that I am picking on this company, I should point out that, completely out of the blue and after I had secured this debate, in my Friday evening surgery last week another constituent came to me with very similar problems with the same company.
	I was approached by Mr. Williamson last May. He gave me a hair-raising account of poor workmanship, loss of his own personal possessions, threats and intimidation, but what was particularly significant were the problems he encountered once he tried to establish remedies through the established channels. This company was accredited to the Federation of Master Builders, so he went to the FMB and sought an adjudication, which was the proper procedure. The adjudicators found in his favour and awarded him £6,230 plus VAT, but the contractor simply did not pay the money. Mr. Williamson also had to pay a fee for the adjudication-£632, which was his half of the costs-but, again, the builder did not pay his half and the matter was just left hanging. Partly as a result of this judgment, the FMB expelled this company-it did so in September of this year, I think-but the company continues to use its logo; I checked on the company's website this weekend. Moreover, it carries the highest prestige logo, something called MasterBond, which carries with it the Government's own scheme accreditation, the TrustMark standard. That continues to be displayed, and there appears to be absolutely no way of getting it removed.
	The constituent sought other remedies. He went to the trading standards department of the local council, but he was not able to make any further progress. He went to the police, too, because he suspected that fraud was involved, but the police felt this was predominantly a civil matter and were not able to help.

Vincent Cable: That is an important point. I was not going to raise it, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for doing so, because it raises a new dimension of uncertainty and lack of satisfactory underpinning to the regulatory regime.
	However, I just want to round off my constituent's case by mentioning that in the course of his research he discovered another resident who had paid something in the order of £120,000 to this contractor and was left with a shell. This appears to be a pattern, therefore.
	A second constituent had a completely unrelated experience involving another contractor called Grey Fox. This lady commissioned an eight-week project, costing contractually £25,000. Twenty-four weeks later she had a very big hole in the front of her house and two extensions, neither of which was completed at all satisfactorily, and the contractor simply walked away. The company was dissolved, she was unable to get any further satisfaction, and her £25,000 project ended up costing £65,000 with another contractor. On doing some research, she discovered that this company was in the habit of carrying out its business in this way.
	A third case illustrated the difficulties and frustrations of going to court. My constituent pursued a dispute with a cowboy builder through the courts and was awarded £17,000, but the company simply did not and would not pay. He then got a charging order on the house of the contractor but was unable to force it through; the contractor had a family-six children-and the judges were very reluctant to allow the charging order to be taken any further. My constituent still has not got his money, despite using the courts.
	The case of another constituent proved the limits of what people are often advised to do, which is to get a warranty. He got a 25-year warranty with a company called Gill Builders, which completed a shoddy piece of work in respect of a leaking roof. He went along with his warranty to ask the company to repair it, but the contractor declined to take any action. It was clear that the warranty had no legal force.
	My final case illustrates the difficulties faced by the very careful consumer who makes carefully calibrated staged payments to limit their exposure. This particular constituent, who was dealing with a company called W. Brown of Feltham, managed to limit his exposure to about £1,000 through carefully staged payments. When he got into dispute with the builder, he went to the Federation of Master Builders only to discover that in order to resolve a dispute it costs £110 an hour plus VAT for an adjudicator. So anything that takes more than a few hours is simply not worth pursuing if the outstanding sum is less than £1,000-for some people that is a lot of money. He was then advised to go to court, but getting legal representation would have cost a minimum of £500. The courts system is not helpful in dealing with small claims of that kind and for many people the loss of £1,000 in a dispute with a builder is a very serious matter.
	Those are some examples of the problem, and they illustrate different points. What general conclusions do I reach and what should be done about it? First, we face a big problem of complexity. Lots of different means are open to people to establish the quality of the contractors that they deal with, but there is no common set of values against which they can be judged. It is very complicated and difficult for consumers to find their way in the system. They could, of course, become part of a membership organisation, such as Which?-they would have to pay for that-but the lack of a standardised system is one of the central weaknesses in this area.
	Let us consider the Government's initiatives, because I recognise that they have tried to get to grips with this problem. The quality mark scheme, which was introduced by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, tried to introduce high quality standards; I believe that it involved a financial audit requirement and a one-day inspection. The problem was that the scheme required expenditure on the part of the building company to get the accreditation-about £500 per annum for a middle-sized building contractor-and so very few of them did it. Thus, very few companies signed up and the scheme, in effect, folded in about 2004.
	The Government then introduced the more modest TrustMark scheme, which is less demanding of companies; it provides a credit search and a search of the county court records. The problem with this scheme-this is what I hope the Minister will update us on-is that it seems to have limited coverage. Perhaps he will be able to tell us how many companies and roughly what proportion of the industry it covers. The scheme also seems to have great difficulty in screening out some of the bad eggs. I did a quick search with my caseworker this weekend and we found that none of our reputable, highly regarded contractors were on the list covered by this scheme, but Mr. Lockyer's company was. In addition, as far as I can establish, there is very little support for the scheme. Perhaps the Minister could give us an up-to-date assessment of the Government's view about how well the scheme is working, and how it could and should be adapted.
	My final point-this is a suggestion-is that that scheme and the approach to this problem in general would be greatly helped if there were a single point of contact, so that people who are contemplating a big home extension and people who get into difficulties with a particular contractor have a single place to which to go in order to have it established what the exact status of the company is, and whether there have been disqualifications or county court judgments; we are talking about a proper health test of the company concerned. The best place to do that, probably, is in the trading standards departments of local councils through a standardised database to which they could all refer. Has the Minister considered that? What are the practical problems that might be involved in doing it?

Kevin Brennan: As is customary, I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on securing this debate on an important subject about which I am sure other hon. Members have concerns from their casework in their constituencies. Clearly, any expenditure on building repairs or improvements to our home represents an investment in our future. It is not a decision that people should take lightly or make hastily and, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, his constituents did not do either of those things.
	Any of us who have been through the experience of engaging builders personally are aware of how stressful and expensive that can be. Obviously, when things go wrong it has both a personal and a national cost. It leaves people with continuing repairs to deal with and to pay for, it puts them off having other work done in the future and it damages the reputation of the building sector as a whole. This is all at a time when the vast majority of hard-working and law-abiding skilled workers who make up this industry in Britain have been hit hard by the recession.
	The hon. Gentleman estimated a cost of £2 billion-the estimate I have is £1.5 billion-but we know that the cost of botched home improvement work and the waste that it entails, even without taking into account the millions more in lost business opportunities to our economy, is very significant.
	Finding the right builder has always been important. Obviously, there are new methods available to consumers. The internet has given greater access than ever before to information on the range of building companies and services available in the UK, but navigating one's way through the mass of information can be confusing and difficult at the best of times, without the added pressure of often needing the work done quickly and cost-effectively.
	In addition, such sites do not always make it clear that many online registers accept builders' details without undertaking checks on their competence or on the business acumen of the companies listed, and also operate with no procedures for dealing with unhappy customers. The criteria to join such schemes can range from companies being asked to pay a standard fee for a listing, or to supply three "recommendations" for inclusion.
	The hon. Gentleman acknowledged that over the past few years, the Government have been working hard with the UK building industry and leading consumer protection groups to help consumers cut through the maze of information and understand exactly the type and quality of information on which they are basing their purchasing decisions without-as he stated elsewhere today, in an article that I have read-introducing unnecessary and burdensome regulation into the system.
	In 2006, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the Government created TrustMark, which is a non-profit scheme to give the public greater peace of mind that the builders they hire in the domestic repair, maintenance and improvement sector will do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, and to a high standard. In answer to his question, I can tell him that the TrustMark scheme now has approximately 20,000 individual firms registered as TrustMark members. Obviously, that constitutes about 20 per cent. of the membership of the Federation of Master Builders, but I accept that this industry has a large number of small companies the vast majority of which are not registered with the FMB.
	The scheme allows builders to sign up and commit to a continuous and rigorous assessment of their work and trading position. A firm's technical skills are independently assessed via regular on-site inspections. Checks are also undertaken regularly on each individual company's trading record and financial status, as well as on the quality of its work, business practices and delivery of customer satisfaction.
	TrustMark companies have also signed up to a Government-endorsed code of practice that includes the provision of guarantees, compliance with good health and safety practices and access to follow-up customer care and means of redress if required. For example, consumers who employ a TrustMark company can expect to be offered an insurance-backed warranty for the work that has taken place. Deposit protection insurance is available to consumers in the event that the firm should cease trading. Businesses are equipped to tell a customer about any building regulations they must comply with, and provide certificates where appropriate.
	Ultimately, if a customer has a problem or disagreement with a TrustMark listed builder, the TrustMark website provides advice and information about how customers can progress and resolve their complaint. One estimate is that 1.7 million jobs are carried out by TrustMark firms every year, yet the number of complaints is low. The consumer may complain directly to the tradesman or their scheme operator and the complaint is easily and quickly resolved, but TrustMark receives only a handful of unresolved complaints every week-three on average. Statistically, that means only one unresolved complaint for every 10,000 jobs completed by a TrustMark-registered firm. That is a very strong statistic for the repair, maintenance and improvement sector, and one that TrustMark is proud of, as it reflects the high quality of firms that are members of the scheme.
	Many national names endorse TrustMark; for example, Dulux, Homebase, B&Q and the Glass and Glazing Federation are just some of the 20-odd scheme operators that work under the TrustMark banner. Supporters include trading standards, Consumer Focus and Help the Aged, to name but a few. To date, a large number of firms, covering nearly 18,000 trades, have registered and I encourage any successful building company that has not yet done so to sign up to TrustMark. It is an easy to understand badge for good business practice, and in an increasingly competitive market, TrustMark offers an accessible channel to build a positive reputation and to source new and repeat business from clients.
	It is not only TrustMark that provides consumers with protection. There are other non-profit initiatives, including competent person schemes, such as FENSA, for glazing. Supported by the Department for Communities and Local Government, such schemes enable individuals and enterprises to self-certify that their work complies with building regulations, as an alternative to submitting a building notice or using an approved inspector, although I take note of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) in his intervention.